


The Center

by HunterPeverell



Series: The Final Winter [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Canon-Typical Violence, Identity Porn, M/M, Mostly Canon Compliant, Post-Canon Fix-It, Retconing Endgame, Sentient Infinity Stones (Marvel), So much angst, Steve Rogers Feels, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:07:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 60,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27782728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HunterPeverell/pseuds/HunterPeverell
Summary: It was 2012 when Steve and the other Avengers went to sleep but 2025 when they woke up. Now struggling to return to their time, they must navigate their way through a future still reeling from the aftermath of something called the Snap, a terrorist organization messing around with time, and potentially allying themselves with the deadly assassin known as the Winter Soldier. Can the Avengers return to 2012? Can Steve figure out enough to avoid this dark future? And why does the Winter Soldier remind him so much of his long-dead best friend?
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: The Final Winter [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2032501
Comments: 44
Kudos: 50





	1. until this earth swallows

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, everyone! I know I’m kinda super late to the whole Endgame thing, but this idea kinda struck me out of nowhere last August, so I started furiously writing it, and here’s the result. This has been beta'd by the wonderful mmouse15, so any remaining mistakes are mine.  
> FYI, this is super self-indulgent, so bear with me :)  
> Chapter title from [here.](https://cardiamachina.co.vu/post/176209947383/how-do-you-say-goodbye-to-someone-youve-been)

### Steve

When Steve woke up, he had no idea where he was.

He opened his eyes and immediately squeezed them shut again. His vision swam alarmingly, in a way that told him either he’d lost his serum-given body and had contracted scarlet fever again, or he’d been hit rather hard on the head. His whole body felt fuzzy and sluggish, and the fear that he was once again in his tiny, broken body forced his eyes open again so he could scan down his body.

Thankfully, he was still in the enormous Captain America body, which relieved him more than he could say, though that was about where his relief ended, because he very much wasn’t in his apartment—the last place he remembered being—or at the Triskelion, which was where he was supposed to be later that day.

In fact, he wasn’t _anywhere_ familiar.

Well, okay, that was a _bit_ of a lie. It wasn’t like he was on an alien planet. He lay on a normal street; there was the familiar green sign of a Starbucks across the street, several clothing stores, a T-Mobile, a Pizza Hut, and a tiny bookstore wedged in between a bar and a Mexican restaurant. Just an ordinary, average street that could belong anywhere in the United States so long as it wasn’t New York City.

Nor did Steve think it was D.C., as the air didn’t feel humid enough for early September. And there was something … _off_ , about the whole place. His vision was still a little blurry, so he blinked hard and tried to make the street resolve into higher resolution.

A groan interrupted his thoughts, and Steve was on his feet in a flash, facing the direction the groan had come from.

Lying a little ways down the street, all spread apart by ten or so feet in a rough oval shape, were a few (now only slightly blurry) familiar faces who were all on their feet, getting to their feet, or still lying on the ground.

Steve hadn’t seen the Avengers in nearly five months except for Romanov and Barton a few times in the Triskelion. There was talk from Fury of pairing Steve and Romanov together on a few missions, but that had yet to happen.

The other three were even more surprising. Stark, last he’d heard, was in his Tower in Manhattan; 

Dr. Banner and Thor had been completely off the grid, Thor on another world and Dr. Banner _somewhere_ in the world.

Romanov was on her feet next to Barton, who was sluggishly slumped upright. Thor, too, was on his feet, crouched next to a prone Dr. Banner, who looked green, but not in a Hulk kind of way. Stark, too, lay on the ground.

Most of them were dressed in civilian clothes. Steve himself was—in his running clothes, though he didn’t remember putting them on. In fact, the only one of them dressed in what could be construed as fighting clothes was Thor, who wore the same armor and red cape as he had five months ago during the Battle. It relieved Steve to see that Thor still had his magic hammer.

Stark moaned from where he lay on his stomach, face turned to the side and mushed against the pavement. His eyes were bloodshot and slightly weepy. None of the others looked much better, really, save for Thor, whose grimace was the only indication that he wasn’t comfortable.

Steve blinked and started towards them, his feet only stumbling slightly. His blurry vision was clearing up, so he squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, trying to clear the last of it up.

“Anyone have any idea what’s going on?” he asked. His voice was slightly hoarse, like he’d been screaming.

“Not a clue,” Stark groaned. “And that’s _not_ something I say often.”

Barton squinted up a the sun—at least, until Romanov rolled her eyes and blocked his view with her hand.

“From the position of the sun,” said Barton, “I’d say we’re near the Canadian border.”

“We have _GPSes_ , Barton,” Stark muttered, pushing himself up into a kneeling position and pulling out his phone.

Then he stared at it.

“Stark?” Steve prompted.

Stark’s eyes swiveled up to stare at him, wild-eyed.

“I don’t have signal,” he said. “How is that _even possible?_ ”

“ _You_ don’t have signal?” Barton asked. “What the hell?”

He and Romanov dug out their own phones and checked, and Steve could tell immediately that they, too, didn’t have signal. Stark was busy tapping away at his phone, brow furrowed and muttering quietly under his breath.

“What is this ‘signal’ you speak of?” Thor rumbled.

Steve eyed the T-Mobile, wondering if they could borrow a phone when it hit him, suddenly, what was wrong with their surroundings.

“Uh, guys?” Dr. Banner asked as he clambered slowly to his feet looking markedly less green. 

“Where is everyone?”

“No idea,” Romanov said, tense and alert, her eyes flickering all around them.

Not only were there no people around them, but the town looked like there hadn’t been people in it for _some time_. The street was littered with sun-bleached trash and several of the store windows were broken or gone completely. There were no displays in the storefronts, no lights on in any of the buildings, and Steve couldn’t hear any cars of voices in the distance.

Steve tore his gaze away. “We need to get to cover,” he said. “Stark, can you walk?”

“ _Yes,_ ” said Stark, still tapping away. “I can’t—I can’t access _anything_. Not JARVIS, not my Tower’s security…”

Romanov put her phone to her ear, then shook her head, tried something else, and sighed. “Nothing from SHIELD’s emergency lines.”

“Cover,” said Steve firmly, offering Stark a hand. “Let’s go.”

Stark and Dr. Banner were the most woozy on their feet, but Thor stuck close by them to catch them if they toppled over. Steve, meanwhile, led them for a small side street that looked more like an alley than anything else. There were a few rusted dumpsters that smelled like they hadn’t been emptied in a _very_ long while, rotting litter which blanketed the ground, and the whole place smelled of stale urine and garbage

“Oh, _yuck,_ ” said Barton.

“Who _died?_ ” Stark wheezed, clutching his nose shut.

“We need to keep moving,” Romanov said, striding ahead of them down the alley, seemingly unaffected by the smell.

“Aye,” said Thor, his troubled gaze roving about. “This place is too quiet.”

“Well, _that’s_ cheerful,” said Stark. “I hadn’t realized we were in a horror movie. What is this, _Texas Chainsaw Massacre? The Shining?_ ”

“Focus,” said Steve. “Thor, can you keep your ears open? Any unusual sound, let us know.”

Thor nodded.

“We need intel,” said Romanov. “Figure out where we are, what happened.”

“Right, ‘cause last I knew, I was in _Los Angeles_ ,” said Stark, who had his phone out once more. “I think JARVIS has been replaced, there’s a new AI, I can’t get it to accept me…”

“I was in Malaysia,” said Dr. Banner.

“D.C.,” said Romanov flatly.

“Kentucky,” offered Barton.

Stark leaned around Thor’s bulk to look at Barton. “What were you doing in _Kentucky?_ ”

“Taking out drug dealers and getting heckled by chickens,” said Barton cheerfully.

“I myself was in Asgard,” rumbled Thor. He glanced up to the sky. “Heimdall?”

Nothing happened for a long moment.

Thor frowned and said, “I suppose things have been quite busy at home, since Loki’s imprisonment.”

“Aren’t you the crown prince?” Stark asked. “Wouldn’t you going missing be kind of a big deal?”

“It would,” Thor conceded, frowning even more heavily.

“Add that to the list of weird things,” said Romanov dryly as they came to the end of the alley and carefully peered around.

The next street over (mostly apartment, more small shops, and a deli that Steve _really_ wished was open and not a biohazard like it most likely was) was just as empty as the last.

“We should break into an apartment,” said Barton. “Maybe this is _The Purge_ and everyone’s hiding indoors.”

Steve had no idea what _The Purge_ was, but by this point, he was used to not knowing things other people referenced. Instead of asking, he said, “We aren’t breaking into somebody’s home.”

“Oh, come on, Cap,” said Stark. “Intel, we need it? Besides, no one’s home, probably. Looks condemned.”

Steve scowled at Stark, who waggled his eyebrows.

“ _Boys,_ ” Romanov snapped.

Steve dragged his gaze away from Howard’s irritating son, gritting his teeth.

“We need a phone,” said Romanov. “And a computer.”

“A library?” Dr. Banner suggested.

“Yes, yes, good idea,” said Steve.

He was treated to dry, unimpressed, and mocking looks from Romanov, Barton, and Stark. He did his best to ignore them.

Beside him, Thor stiffened, and Steve glanced over at the Asgardian, who was frowning and staring off to the west, head cocked.

“Well,” said Romanov. “It’s not a bad start. We just need to figure out where—”

There was an explosion down the street.

Steve and Thor bolted down the street towards the noise and smoke rising perhaps half a mile away from them. Steve focused on running faster. He could hear Romanov and Barton trying to keep up, but no matter how good they were, they couldn’t keep up with a god and a super soldier, and so they fell back farther and farther.

Steve and Thor flew down streets and alleyways, getting closer to the plume of smoke wafting into the sky. The earth shuddered beneath their feet the closer they got. One particularly strong shake nearly knocked Steve off his feet as he tried to turn a corner, but he managed to keep his balance and continue on.

Past a gutted out car, over a tree growing in the middle of a sidewalk, over an empty, broken shopping cart, Thor keeping up with him pace for pace.

“Rogers!” Romanov called just before Steve and Thor turned a corner that would lead them to the source of the smoke. “Stop!”

Thor skidded to a halt and Steve, just a beat later, stopped too.

Steve peered around the corner as he waited for the others to catch up. Past the short side street, there was a large open square with several intersections around it. It must have been the town’s center—there was a grand building that probably had served as the city hall across the way from him. However, the hall was currently the epicenter of the battle. Smoke rose from its roof as several large knots of people fought. Most of the people seemed to be dressed in dark clothes with some sort of yellow insignia affixed to their breasts.

“I mark about fifty people,” Romanov said over his shoulder. Steve glanced back at her. There was a slight red flush to her cheeks and her breath was coming maybe a bit harder than usual.

At her side, Barton’s gaze was utterly focused and clear as he looked over the fight. “There’s fifty-two with the yellow insignias, and they’re fighting … so far I’ve spotted three non-yellow insignia’d people.”

“Fifty-two against _three?_ ” Steve asked.

“So far,” Barton repeated as Dr. Banner and Stark staggered up, both panting. “Maybe their allies were caught up in the explosion or something.”

“I hate you all,” Stark wheezed. “I have a _heart condition!_ ”

“Sorry,” said Steve as he watched one of the fighters Barton mentioned begin to _glow red and start flying._

“What the—” Barton said, gaping. Steve could relate.

“Powered individuals,” said Romanov grimly.

The fighter—a woman, if her long hair was any indication—threw red light down on the yellow-insignia fighters and dodged their return shots.

Mixed in with the smoke from the town hall, blue light erupted like gunfire, putting Steve uncomfortably in mind of the HYDRA weapons from the war.

A second woman appeared from the smoke for a moment, knocked through it by a large man, but then another man tackled her attacker and she vanished back into the smoke.

Steve’s eyes were drawn to her ally, since he’d tackled her attacker into a group of about twelve heavily armed combatants. Steve caught a flash of armor on his left arm, dark hair streaming behind him as he gripped a gun in one hand and a knife in the other. Steve readied himself to bolt forward and help the man out, except it seemed that the twelve guys were actually outmatched by the one guy as he systematically took them out, one by one.

He felt more than saw Romanov tense minutely next to him.

“You recognize him?” he murmured to her.

“That’s the Winter Soldier,” she replied, her face paling just slightly.

Steve didn’t know her that well, but he figured that if she looked even remotely shocked, then whoever the Winter Soldier was was _bad news._

Barton, at her side, did an actual double-take. “No shit? I thought he was a myth!”

“He’s very real,” she said grimly.

“Uh, hello?” Stark said. “Not all of us have tragic assassin backstories. Who or what is this Whiney Soldier? Details!”

“An assassin,” said Romanov. “Credited with dozens of kills over the last fifty years.”

“I’m sorry,” said Steve as he watched said apparently-prolific-killer finish off the last of his opponents. More of the yellow-insignia’d fighters started attacking him, and so the assassin turned his attention to them without missing a beat. “Did you say _fifty?_ ”

“Probably all different people using the same name,” Barton offered. “But, hey, it _could_ all be the same guy. Somehow.”

“Probably different people,” Stark agreed. “Hey, maybe there’s a geriatric assassin’s club.”

Steve tuned Stark out as he catalogued the Winter Soldier’s fighting. It wasn’t as graceful as, say, Natasha’s, but there was an elegance to it, and single-mindedness. Each move perfectly calculated, each strike an exacting force. He was faster than an average man, stronger, too. One punch sent his opponent flying back ten feet. The man did not get up again.

Something cold trickled up Steve’s neck as he realized that the man before him was likely enhanced somehow. Whoever he was, he could be a match for _Steve_. That was … worrying. Not as worrying as it could be, since Steve currently had a Norse god of thunder and the Hulk next to him, but worrying nevertheless.

“Who does he work for, Romanov?” he asked.

“And if he friend or foe?” Thor rumbled.

“He used to work for Department X,” said Romanov. “But he fell off my radar in the nineties when the Soviet Union fell. I don’t know who he works for now.”

“So either he’s fighting people we should fight too,” said Dr. Banner, “or he’s mowing through our potential allies.”

“Give that it’s the Winter goddamned Soldier,” said Barton. “It’s probably the last one.”

All the fighters up against the Winter Soldier were down now, and he darted over to the glowing red woman, who vaulted him up onto a nearby one-story building, where he vanished from their sight.

“Potential allies or not,” said Romanov. “We should leave.”

“Yeah, usually I’m all for taking down legendary assassins and their flying, glowing partners,” said Stark, “but I’d feel a lot better with, you know. My suit. And JARVIS. And maybe several missiles.”

“We’ll regroup,” said Steve as he watched the glowing woman lift rubble with her red light and fling it at her assailants. The fifty-two Barton had originally called had, between the woman’s efforts and the Winter Soldier’s, dwindled down to eight, but the woman was handily taking care of. “Let’s go find that library right now.”

“Eight streets to the south,” said a voice, amused.

Steve whirled around to find the Winter Soldier stood behind them.

He was tall, only a couple inches shorter than Steve. His long brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail. He wore goggles over his eyes, a black bandana around the lower part of his face, and several knives and guns strapped openly around his body plus quite a few more not-so-openly. He wore some sort of fighting suit not unlike the one Barton wore during the Battle of New York, though he was missing the left sleeve, revealing a dark metal arm veined in silver. He stood at the ready, but with no hostility, which Steve was going to take as a win, and—

And then Romanov attacked him.

Great.

Their fight was quick and brutal. Romanov ducked around him and wove in and out of his counter strikes. He was, for some reason, pulling his strikes and seemed more focused on blocking hers than taking her out.

“Romanov!” Steve barked just as Barton hissed, “Tash!”

Romanov broke away, guns up, panting just slightly.

The Winter Soldier slowly stepped away from her, hands up.

“Nice welcome,” the Winter Soldier said dryly. He had an Eastern European accent, though Steve couldn’t exactly place where.

“We mean you no harm,” Thor said placatingly. “You merely took my companion by surprise.”

“It’s fine,” said the Soldier. “I understand.”

Romanov said something in Russian, her body still tense, ready to fire or fight.

“I am freed,” replied the Soldier. “And have been for several years.”

“Since _when?_ ” Romanov demanded lowly.

“Since 2014,” said the Soldier.

Steve stared. He was aware most of the Avengers were also staring.

“I’m _sorry,_ ” said Stark. “Did you say _2014?_ ”

“Yes,” said the Soldier. He slowly moved his hand and withdrew a phone from an inner pocket. He lit up the screen, and Steve saw quite clearly: SEP. 15th, 2025.

“Wait,” said Steve. “ _2025?_ ”

“Yes.” The Soldier put his phone away and moved his head so that it was obvious he was looking at Romanov. “Natashka,” he said, a touch more gently, “that isn’t necessary.”

Romanov’s eyes widened ever so slightly. “You remember.”

“I do,” said the Soldier. “I have been freed for eleven years now, or six, depending. My programming is long gone.”

Romanov didn’t relax, but she did lower her guns. She didn’t put them away. “Which is it? Eleven or six?”

“Christ,” said the Soldier. “It’s complicated.”

“2025,” Barton mumbled. “The _hell._ ”

“Thirteen years in the future,” Stark said. “People don’t just _time travel._ ”

“It’s more common than you know,” said the Soldier. “And stranger things have happened.”

“I think I’d like a refund on the future,” said Stark.

“Guys,” said Steve. He looked at Romanov and raised an eyebrow.

She considered the Soldier for a moment, then said something again in Russian. The Soldier replied in the same language. Barton looked intently between them.

Then Romanov stowed her guns away.

“Great,” said Stark, clapping his hands softly together. “So, are we _actually_ in 2025, or are you pranking us? AM I on candid camera?”

“No,” said the Soldier. “What year are you from? 2012? 2013?”

“2012,” said Steve. “September of, too.”

“The fifteen,” said Romanov. “For whatever that’s worth.”

The Soldier nodded and said, “We are currently in Michigan—” (“Called it,” Barton muttered.) “—My team and I are here taking out a faction of A.I.M.”

“A.I.M.?” Steve glanced back towards the city hall. There were no more yellow-insignia’d fighters still upright, and the woman was currently walking through the bodies, checking them as she went. Behind her, encased in her red light, floated various weapons she relieved from the bodies.

“Advanced Idea Mechanics,” said Romanov. “SHIELD has our eyes on them.”

The Soldier nodded placidly. “I can take you to the Avengers, though I understand if you do not wish to come with me. I do, however, recommend getting out of this town. It’s been overrun by A.I.M. and other criminals.”

“Wait, the Avengers?” Dr. Banner asked.

The Soldier considered him, then said, “They are stationed in upstate New York now. I can take you to them, but you are all resourceful. I have no doubt you will make it there on your own should you so choose.”

Steve noticed that most of the Avengers were looking at him. Waiting for his call.

So he took a moment to think. The Winter Soldier hadn’t attacked them, only defended himself. He was providing them answers. He had gotten Romanov to lower her guard, if only slightly. From what he’d said, he’d dealt with time travel before. And he claimed he knew the Avengers.

What the hell. World War II was only six months ago for him, he was simultaneously twenty-six and ninety-four, and five months ago he fought a bunch of aliens in Manhattan. Why not lead the Avengers after a legendary assassin to find the future’s Avengers?

“Let’s go,” he said, nodding to the Soldier.

The Soldier hesitated one second, apparently taken aback, before nodding in return.

Then the Soldier deliberately turning his back on them and leading them off, saying, “The quinjet’s this way.”

### Bucky

Bucky was officially going crazy. _2012_. What the hell.

When he had told Steve, back in 1943 when they were way younger and only marginally less dumber that they were going to the future, he hadn’t meant it so _literally._

_Ugh._

But, well, here they are. Or, rather, here was Bucky, visited by a Steve he hadn’t seen in decades, fresh from the War, and damn if the sight of him so young and full of vim and vigor didn’t make Bucky want to forget the last two years of his life, kidnap him, and run away to live on a farm in the middle of nowhere, timelines be damned.

He wouldn’t _actually_ do it, but a man could dream. Steve had always been his drug of choice, and seeing Steve as he was _was_ a powerful sight, even thought Steve didn’t know who he was at the moment.

Which was painful. It was actually painful. It was hard to see Steve as he used to be, as he still was in Bucky’s head, but to not be _Bucky_ to Steve and to know that there was no Steve waiting for him save an old, faded version of himself.

The thought of the Steve-of-now sent a pang through Bucky’s heart, sharp and visceral in a way it hadn’t been in a while.

It was a pain he didn’t want to feel, a pain that had, for the most part, settled down into a dull throb in his heart. For it to rear its head again … wasn’t a good feeling.

Perhaps distancing himself from Steve would help. Just treat him like the stranger the Steve-of-now had turned them into.

 _Steve._ Too friendly, too loaded with their past.

 _Rogers._ Less personal. More like he’s talking to an acquaintance.

That was manageable, even if it was weird as hell to call him _Rogers_ in his own head.

But that was the point—it was a disconnect. Disconnects were good. It was how Bucky had managed to make it through withdrawal from all the shit HYDRA had him on, how he’d made it through Steve’s decision a couple years back. Bucky could do this. He could handle it.

Probably.

Bucky walked ahead of the Avengers, most of whom still regarded him with wary suspicion. However, Bucky _was_ far enough ahead that they shouldn’t be able to pick up a quick comm to his team if he kept quiet enough.

“FRIDAY,” he said in barely more than a whisper. “Patch.”

“Soldier?” he heard Addison ask.

“Who copies?” he responded, barely moving his lips, trusting FRIDAY to amplify his words.

“Copy,” said Piper.

“Copy,” said Wanda.

There was a long pause before Sam’s voice came through, sounding utterly annoyed. “Yeah, yeah, copy. _Paperwork._ ”

Well, that explained the annoyance.

“Code 20-19,” he said.

“Well, shit,” said Sam. “Who and when?”

“ _Again?_ ” Wanda asked at the same time, sounding winded.

“More permanent,” Bucky reported. “Currently been five minutes, been here longer.”

Sam must have picked something up in Bucky’s tone, because he said, “Don’t even tell my. Don’t you—Damn it. It’s him, isn’t it?”

“Six from 2012,” Bucky confirmed.

“Do they know you?” Addison asked urgently.

“No. Sam, Strange.”

“On it,” said Sam. “ETA?”

“One hour.”

“We’re finishing up here,” said Addison. “We’ll be done in five minutes.”

“I’m in pursuit of Forson,” Wanda reported. “I’ll update my ETA soon.”

“Good luck, Witch” said Piper as Bucky rounded a corner where the Avengers’ quinjet sat in a secluded parking lot.

He had no idea what to say to most of the Avengers, not least because it was partially due to _him_ they broke up back in 2016. Awkward. Also awkward? Being around Steve goddamned Rogers and Tony what-do-I-even-say-to-him Stark. Well, at least Stark didn’t pop up from the past in his Iron Man suit. That would probably lead to another Siberia showdown once Bucky told Stark what he’d done. Instead, Stark would have to use his fists to hurt Bucky, unless he had some sort of paper-thin weapon tucked away under his Led Zeppelin t-shirt and grease-stained jeans. Unlikely, but Stark was for sure a wily bastard.

God, however long this time travel thing took to resolve itself had already been _way too long._ Bucky would like to just go and get as drunk as possible (read: tipsy and unhappy about that fact) and watched stupid reality shows with Sam, Wanda, Addison, and Piper while making fun of other people’s poor life choices instead of dealing with … _whatever this was._

Stark let out a low whistle as he and the past Avengers approached the quinjet. “Sweet ride, Terminator.”

Bucky shrugged. “It’s Starktech.”

“It _is?_ ”

Stark opened his mouth, probably to talk some more, but that was when Bucky tackled him.

“Woah!” Stark squawked as a bullet hit the ground where he’d been standing.

“Take cover!” Buck shouted, quite unnecessarily as the past Avengers leapt into action. While Bucky manhandled Stark to hide behind the quinjet, he saw both Natasha and Barton had their guns out, peering from around an old rusted car. Banner was huddled next to a dumpster, apparently taking calming breaths, which, _good_ , because Bucky _so_ did not want to deal with the Hulk on top of everything else.

Rogers, the dumbass, peeked around the wall of a building, his eyes sweeping around the building tops.

There was no sign of Thor. Wait, scratch that, there was a loud groan from one of the building roofs. Bucky’s eyes followed the noise, and he saw the Asgardian quite handily taking care of the sniper and the second man up there.

Despite the fact that a literal god was handling it, Rogers still looked like he wanted to charge up there and help.

“Don’t even think about it, Rogers,” Bucky growled, and Rogers shot him a _very_ familiar look, a _you can’t tell me what to do_ look. It made Bucky want to punch him and then lock him up in a room filled with all sorts of calming music, fluffy blankets, and strictly enforced orders to _chill already goddamnit._

“Thor has this!” he snapped. “Let the alien take care of it, not everything is on you!”

Now Rogers just looked confused, and Bucky took that momentary win to punch open the quinjet and shove Stark up the ramp.

“Hey!” Stark protested, but still scuttled up into the depths of the jet.

Thor landed with two men in hand. One was unconscious—the sniper, Bucky could see his callouses—and the other was some pimply kid that couldn’t be more than eighteen years old, split lip and glaring eyes.

“Hey, kid,” said Bucky, staring down at him. He wasn’t trying to look intimidating—something the bandana helped with, since he looked more like a badass cowboy (in his opinion) than a terrifying assassin—but the kid still stared up at him, wide-eyed and squeaked out, “Shit, man, don’t kill me.”

“Uh-huh,” said Bucky. “Why was your friend shooting at us?”

The kid remained mulishly silent.

Natasha stepped forward and stared down at the kid, so the kid wasn’t just faced with the Winter Soldier, but also the Black Widow.

The kid peed his pants.

Bucky sighed and said, “Hands out.”

He snapped a pair of cuffs on the kid and the sniper and told Thor, “Follow me.”

The Asgardian obligingly manhandled the kid and the sniper onto the quinjet and placed them both in separate holding cells.

“Who are they with?” Rogers asked. He and the other past Avengers had followed him onto the quinjet.

“Probably A.I.M.,” Bucky admitted. “But the Avengers—the current Avengers—will take care of them.”

“Not SHIELD?” Stark asked idly as he examined the jet.

Given that SHIELD had been largely defunct for eleven years, that wasn’t likely, Bucky thought, but out loud he just said, “A.I.M. is the Avengers’ current … project.”

“How close is the rest of your team?” Rogers asked.

Bucky checked his internal countdown. “About two minutes out.”

“I gotta say, you don’t act much like what I was expecting,” Barton told him casually. Bucky wasn’t fooled by his tone, though—he could see the sharp intelligence in the man’s eyes.

Bucky met his gaze coolly. “I was given little choice. Now, I am free and I don’t do that anymore.”

Rogers opened his mouth, but Bucky shook his head, cutting him off. “If I can, I will explain later.”

Rogers’ mouth snapped closed and he gave Bucky a tight nod.

“I gotta say,” said Stark suddenly. “I wasn’t 100% sold on this whole ‘2025’ thing, but this jet—!” He gave a low whistle. “This is Starktech alright, and way beyond anything I’ve made. I’m convinced.”

“A plane convinced you,” said Natasha, raising an eyebrow.

Stark shrugged. “You can fake a date, a phone screen, whatever. You can evacuate a town, drop a sand bomb on it. But tech? _My_ tech? That’s much harder to pull off. I mean, I have a few prototype jets in the works, but this?” He looked around. “This is that same tech _thirteen years_ later. So, yeah, I’m convinced.”

“Huh,” said Barton. “Well then. Welcome to the future, everybody.”

“I should make a call,” Bucky said. He looked over to Natasha, who watched him closely. “He has the most experience with time travel.”

She quirked an eyebrow. “That’s something someone can have experience with?”

“Yeah, I _know,_ ” Bucky muttered as he pulled out his phone.

Banner cleaned his glasses on his shirt and moved closer, looking wary, yet interested.

“Speaker,” Natasha said.

Bucky obliged and they listened to the phone ring once, twice, and on the third ring, the wizard picked it up with a, “About time. Say nothing.”

Bucky huffed a breath through his nose. “Sam filled you in?”

“There was a massive spike in temporal energy, which also rather tipped me off,” the wizard said dryly. “How long have they been around?”

Bucky glanced at the Avengers and said, “So far, over ten minutes.”

Rogers cleared his throat. “It’s been about twenty minutes.”

It was a jolt, every time he heard Rogers speak. _Ugh,_ Bucky needed this problem solved _yesterday._

“What have you told them?” Strange asked.

“Just the year,” said Bucky.

“Good.” Bucky heard the swish of Strange’s cape on the other end of the line and a quiet, hurried conversation, then Strange said, “I’ll meet you at the Center. Get them there as quickly as you can Bar—Soldier.”

“Thank you,” Bucky managed to say just before Strange hung up on him.

“Who was that?” Banner asked.

“Dr. Strange,” said Bucky. “He’s … a wizard, I guess you could say.”

“Right,” said Stark. “Why not have Dumbledore run around?”

“There’s a Norse god on this quinjet,” Bucky pointed out.

Stark glared in Thor’s vague direction and muttered, “Touché.”

“I had not realized users of magic existed on Midgard,” Thor said. “This is good news! I look forward to conversing with this magician.”

“Are magic-users common on Asgard?” Barton asked.

“There are not many,” Thor admitted. “But I have come across many, in my life, and all love knowledge and the pursuit of. Why, my brother—” Thor faltered, and Barton’s expression closed off, becoming stormy and sullen.

Definitely awkward.

“I’m going to make another call, to my teammates,” said Bucky, forgoing any notion of subtlety. “Just to make sure they won’t accidentally end the world talking to you.”

“Sure,” said Rogers.

Bucky dialed Addison, who answered with a slightly out of breath, “Hey—”

“Say nothing, when you arrive,” said Bucky. “Strange is meeting us at the Center, where he’ll get a better idea of what’s going on. Until then, zip. Can you tell Lightning and Scarlet?”

“I’m here,” Piper butted in. “And nothing? What if I wanted to tap one of them to help me with an elaborate lottery scheme?”

“Hey, I’d help,” Barton volunteered cheerfully.

Bucky rolled his eyes. “ _No,_ Piper. How far out are you two?”

“Less than a minute,” said Addison. “We’re waiting for Scarlet.”

Bucky frowned. “She still hasn’t appeared?”

“I’ll get in contact with her,” said Addison. “Your comms?”

“I’ll hook them up,” said Bucky, already moving towards the console, tapping a few buttons and hooking their comms in so the whole quinjet could hear. “Scarlet Witch, do you read me?”

“Yes?” she panted.

Bucky’s concern spiked. “Status?”

“Forson got away,” she said grimly. “New tech, Stark knock-offs.”

“Damn it,” Bucky muttered. “Get back to the quinjet, we’ll come up with a new plan back at the Center.”

“I’ll be there in two minutes,” Wanda said. “Golden, Lightning, go ahead.”

“Got it,” said Addison.

“Any idea where Forson went?” Bucky asked Wanda.

“No,” she said. “Not a single clue.”

Bucky pressed his lips together and silenced the comms.

“So, what’s the Center we keep mentioning?” Stark asked.

“It’s near the current Avengers’ headquarters,” Bucky replied as Addison and Piper appeared from around a building, heading straight for the quinjet.

“Lightning and Golden, I take it?” Natasha asked as she watched them approach carefully.

“Piper and Addison, yes,” said Bucky before calling out, “‘Bout time.”

Addison and Piper flipped him off at the same time, and Piper said, “Shove it, Bu—Soldier. _Gah,_ this is weird.”

“You’re telling me,” Addison agreed as the boarded. She caught sight of the filled holding cell. “Hel _lo_ , who’s this?”

“Sniper,” said Bucky as Piper joined him up front, sliding into a pilot’s seat. “And some kid the sniper was protecting.”

“Think they’re with Forson?” Piper asked with interest.

“We’ll find out soon,” he murmured.

“He’s so young,” Addison murmured as she looked at the kid.

“You’re one to talk,” said Stark. “What are you, eight?”

“I’m twenty-five,” Addison said dryly. She stuck out her hand. “You must be Mr. Stark. I’m Addison Fay.”

“Tony, please,” said Stark. “And don’t act coy, you know who I am.”

“Sure, but we’ve never met,” said Addison. “In fact, I’ve only met a couple of you. I’m a new recruit. Well, Piper and me both.”

“Piper Trolley,” Piper called over her shoulder. “Nice to meet you, etcetera, etcetera.”

Bucky slid into the other pilot’s seat and flipped a few switches, preparing for takeoff. “Wanda here yet?”

Piper glanced at a monitor. “Just landed.”

Not two seconds later, Wanda hurried up the gangway, frowning thunderously.

“He has tricky tech,” she ranted. “Makes him hard for me to find, _ugh._ ”

Addison patted her shoulder and said, “We’ll get him, Wands.”

Wanda threw herself into one of the seats and sighed. “I know. But still.” She looked the Avengers over and said, “None of you know who I am, do you?”

“Afraid not,” Rogers said, apologetically. “But you’re Wanda, right?”

“Wanda Maximoff,” Wanda agreed. “It is good to see you again, Captain Rogers.”

“I—” Rogers sounded thrown. “Call me Steve,” he settled on.

“Steve,” Wanda agreed.

“Let’s go,” said Bucky, closing the up ramp. “If everyone could find their seats and buckle up, that would make my life easier.”

There was general shuffling behind him as the Avengers found open spots, and Bucky turned his focus towards the controls as he and Piper lifted the quinjet into the sky.

### Steve

Steve tried to stare surreptitiously at the three women who had joined them on the quinjet. He didn’t want to come off as creepy or rude, but the three women were so _young._

The first, Addison, was a rather short girl with tanned skin. Her eyes were a soft honey brown and her long brown hair was tightly coiled against her head. She wore a dark grey tactical uniform with a utility belt where a gun and two knives were strapped, glints of gold and orange peeking out here and there. She wore an orange scarf around her neck.

Wanda, sitting next to her, looked no older than Addison’s twenty-five. Her reddish-brown hair was tired back with a leather strap. A dark red leather jacket hung down to her knees, and her clothes underneath were dark and well-worn. Her eyes were rimmed with black and a few necklaces glinted around her throat. Many rings adorned her fingers, though two caught Steve’s eyes—they looked more like gauntlets around each of her index fingers.

The copilot, Piper, looked like she was only slightly taller than Addison. Her dark skin was covered in a fine layer of dust and faint, silvery scars. Her dark hair was braided with blue ribbons. She was dressed not dissimilarly to the Soldier and Addison in dark greys with quite a number of weapons, though she also had dark metal gauntlets covering both of her hands. She looked like the youngest out of all the women, her features belonging to someone no older than twenty years old.

 _What has this future come to?_ Steve thought. _That we ask such young people to fight?_

Which led Steve to the question—what happened to him and the other Avengers? Thirteen years was quite a number of years, where anything could have happened. Were they dead? Invalid?

The thought weighed on him. If he was dead, here in 2025, then that was one thing. Steve didn’t anticipate that he’d see forty (or one hundred and six, depending on how he counted), so if he’d died sometime in the last thirteen years, that was one thing.

Except, well. None of the Soldier’s team acted like he was something who’d been dead. Wanda apparently knew him, and she hadn’t acted like he was a long-lost dead friend. Really, she’d put on a front of amusement at the whole situation, but if Steve had read her correctly, then, when she’d looked at him, she’d also been wary and mistrustful, underneath it all.

It made him wonder, what he’d been up to. Where he was now.

Because Steve? Steve had a hunch that he wasn’t dead, in 2025. Which meant that somewhere out there, his forty-year old (one hundred and six year old) self was letting people just out of childhood fight.

The thought made him sick. Steve desperately hoped there was an explanation for it.

He looked over at Romanov, who seemed utterly nonchalant. He wasn’t fooled for a moment—Romanov was on high alert. Things had all been soothed by Stark’s conviction that they were, in fact, in 2025—Steve didn’t know the man well and wasn’t sure he even liked him, but he couldn’t deny the man’s genius, and if Stark was convinced, then who was _Steve_ to disagree with him?—but the fact still remained that they were being piloted by someone who unnerved _Agent Romanov_. She’d calmed down quite a bit, but Steve didn’t miss the way her sharp eyes catalogued the Soldier and his team, nor the way her hands rested steady on her thighs, ready to go for a weapon at any moment.

Barton, who sat on her other side, looked totally relaxed, but Steve wasn’t fooled by him, either. Steve didn’t know how he came across, outwardly, but he remained was also on high alert, just in case.

“Okay, this silence is getting to me,” Stark announced to the cabin in general. “Where are we going?”

“Place called Halfway Hills,” said Wanda.

“Never heard of it,” said Stark.

“I would be surprised if you had,” she said, amused. “It was only founded about a year and a half ago.”

Barton titled his head. “Is it a headquarters, or…?”

Wanda shook her head. “Sort of. You will see soon.”

“Oh, _come on,_ ” Stark complained.

“Tony,” said Dr. Banner. “We’re trying _not_ to unravel the space-time continuum?”

“Fine, fine,” said Stark. “So, I’ve met Wanda, Piper, and Addison. Soldier, you got a name, or are we just going to keep calling you ‘The Winter Soldier,’ because that honestly seems like a mouthful.”

The Soldier didn’t even look away from his controls. “Soldier is fine.”

“What?” C’mon! It’s not like your _name_ will shatter the very fabric of reality!”

“Stranger things have happened,” the Soldier retorted. “I’m not chancing it.”

Stark rolled his eyes. “You know, when that Strange guy—ha!—said to not tell us anything, I don’t think he meant _quite this literally._ ”

“Not chancing it,” the Soldier repeated.

Addison, sitting across from Steve, looked deeply amused. “Is your ability to run annoying motor mouth a gift, Mr. Tony?”

Stark recoiled. “ _Oh my god_ don’t call me that. And it’s a gift, like yours, apparently.”

“Stark,” Steve said, frowning.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Club Penguin,” said Stark. “Am I annoying you?”

Steve’s frown deepened, and he said, “Stop trying to pry for information out of them. We don’t know—”

“What’ll happen if we do, blah, blah, blah,” Stark finished. “Yeah, I’m _aware_ of that, Chuck Noland. But we know their names!” He waved a hand at Wanda and Addison. “Also, wasn’t he a prolific assassin working for some unknown shady bad guys? Am I just supposed to _trust_ him like, what, when I trusted SHIELD? Oh, wait…!”

Steve thought he heard a snort from the Soldier up front, but he didn’t pay it much mind, trying to refrain from rolling his eyes. “And I’m sure that once we know the ramifications of our accidental time travel becomes clear, they’ll tell us what they can without destroying reality.” _They better_ , he thought.

“And how are we supposed to trust their info?” Stark demanded.

“We can call up people you know,” Piper called back. “It’s only been thirteen years; they’re still around.”

“I ran into Colonel Rhodes not too long ago,” Wanda offered.

“Rhodey!” Stark latched onto that. “How is he?”

“He’s fine,” she assured him. “Retired, but still fighting.”

“Retired, huh?” Stark sat back. “Sounds about right. He’d be, what? Fifty-seven?”

“Next month,” the Soldier said. “We’re throwing him a party.”

“What I’d like to know,” Steve interrupted. “Is where _we_ are, in this future.” He meets Wanda’s eyes, the Addison’s. “I know you guys can’t tell us, not right now, but surely the fastest way of getting us to trust you would be to bring our future selves forward.”

Wanda and Addison don’t respond immediately, their eyes meeting for a split second, before Addison offered, “That’s going to be more complicated than you think.”

“What, are we all dead?” Barton frowned.

Addison opened her mouth, then closed it. Wanda said, “Some of you are, yes.”

Addison’s lips tightened, and Steve narrowed his eyes at her. But Addison just said, “Some of you are very far away or very hard to contact. We’ll try, but also, well…”

“We don’t know what’ll happened if one person from two different times try to get in the same place,” Piper called out her shoulder.

“But perhaps a video chat…” Wanda mused.

“Banner might do that,” Addison said. “If we can get ahold of him.”

So Dr. Banner was alive, in this time. That just left the rest of them. And some were dead. Steve’s eyes flickered around to the rest of the team, wondering who hadn’t made it to 2025. It sobered his fellow teammates, and Steve could tell they were all wondering the same thing as him.

Was he sitting next to someone who hadn’t made it? Steve glanced at Romanov, to his left, and Thor to his right, wondering if their future selves were dead.

“Jeeze, this is depressing,” Stark mumbled.

“You know what?” the Soldier said from the front. “Wands, Addy, we got any of those smoothies left?”

Addison jumped to her feet with a muttered, “I’ll check,” before hurrying away from the tense atmosphere through a narrow doorway past the holding cell.

“Smoothies, really?” he heard Piper muttered.

“What the hell else am I supposed to do?” the Soldier muttered back.

Steve pressed his lips together. What he wouldn’t give to be stuck in this situation with the Commandos, with Peggy, or Bucky.

God, things would be so much better if Bucky in this situation with him. He could charm anyone with a smile and a smart remark. He could befriend anyone, if he set his mind to it, and he could always roll with any situation thrust at him. Even after Austria, even as he was quieter, more withdrawn, Bucky could grin and quip with the best of them, like his time as a POW had never happened.

If it had been Bucky waking up sixty-eight years in the future, then Steve had no illusions that he would get back on his feet quicker. Bucky had always been a whizz with gadgets—he’d have cottoned onto the new technology with ease, watched and assimilated to the latest trends, fit in with the sort of charm that left people endeared to him. He wouldn’t have been so easily swayed by Loki’s scepter to start fighting. He would have helped the team gel together, worked through any arguments and squabbles until the Avengers were a well-oiled machine.

Steve might have become nearly a foot taller and over a hundred pounds heavier, but he’d never been able to maintain relationships with people besides his Ma, Bucky, and Bucky’s family. He never quite got how to compromise, not the way Bucky could, to make most friendships work.

Honestly, he had no idea why Bucky stuck around for so long, why, out of all the people Bucky could have befriended, he’d chosen _Steve._

And then he’d died.

So it wasn’t Bucky in this future, making friends and integrating easily. Instead, it was uncompromising Steve Rogers, who couldn’t bend with the punches anymore than he could run from a fight.

His thoughts were beginning to spiral darkly, but that was when Addison reappeared with a cloth bag of juice packs.

“No smoothies,” she said. “But I found some juice. Anyone thirsty?”

She doled them out, and several minutes later, everyone was trying to suck out the juice through the ridiculously tiny straws.

It was so surreal, and Steve wished he could turn and share a smile with Bucky or, hell, _Peggy_. (What he wouldn’t give to have her keen intelligence and warm understanding here with him.) But he couldn’t, so he settled for finishing his juice as quickly as possible.

The rest of the flight passed by quickly, which Steve was _intensely_ thankful for. Most of the people in the quinjet conversed with one another in smaller groups—Dr. Banner and Stark discussed some new repulsor engines Stark was working on, Wanda and Addison seemed to be talking about some sort of game they planned to work together on next game night, and Romanov and Barton were having a conversation using only hand signs. Only Steve and Thor sat in silence, though Thor occasionally asked Wanda and Addison about their game, which eventually led to them explaining various games to the alien prince, who declared he very much wished to play a game called _Sorry!_ , much to Stark’s amusement.

When the Soldier and Piper began taking them down, Steve wasn’t the only one to peer out the front windshield, hoping to catch a glimpse of Halfway Hills.

Below them, steadily getting closer, was a large area filled with different buildings. There seemed to be an ugly concrete structure to the north jutting out over a lake. Some of it seemed to be under repair. Remains of other concrete buildings and roadways littered the ground, thoroughly destroyed. However, to the south, where more trees grew, there seemed to be an honest-to-God Hooverville huddled around a stone-and-wood two-storied building.

Stark stiffened. “Hold up, is that _my_ property?”

“Yes,” said Wanda. “You gave it to the Avengers in 2015 to use.”

The quinjet touched down, and Steve found his voice and said, “Was that a _Hooverville?_ ”

Addison unbuckled her straps. “Many things have happened. Let’s get you to the Community Center now.”

Steve unstrapped on autopilot, unable to shake the quick glimpses he’d gotten of buildings thrown together with various materials, standing more from desperation and spite than good structural integrity.

“Let’s go,” said the Soldier, striding past them all to the holding cell, where he dragged the kid out while Thor amicably grabbed the sniper, who was groggy, but awake, and glaring at everyone with a menace Steve could almost feel like a physical thing.

“Hey, man,” the kid whined, but the Soldier merely frog marched him down the ramp and outside.

Wanda led the other Avengers out, and Steve made sure he was the last to go, wanting to watch their backs, when he became aware that Piper and Addison were both watching him.

He gave them a tight smile. “May I help you?”

“No,” said Piper. Her stare was distinctly less friendly and more calculating than Addison’s. “Sorry. It’s just, this is really hinky.”

“I get it,” said Addison tightly, and Steve wondered if they were talking about the time travel or something else.

“Sorry,” said Piper, giving him a false grin. “C’mon, Addy.”

They hurried outside, and Steve stared after them, confused, until he realized he was the only one still on the quinjet and hurried after them.

Once he was outside and crossing the grassy meadow towards Halfway Hills, he studied the houses carefully.

There was a lot more plastic, a lot more cardboard, but most of the hundred or so houses seemed to be made from stone harvested from the destroyed buildings and roads. There were a lot of gardens and potted plants situated around the houses, and he saw many people tending to the gardens or walking around.

There was an engraved plate affixed to a wooden post which read: AVENGERS COMPOUND, only someone had gone over it with spray-paint, crossing out the engraved words and writing above it, WELCOME TO HALFWAY HELLS.

This wasn’t the future he’d imagined. Sure, 2012 was still recovering from the recession in ‘07, but things weren’t as bad as they had been, back in the 30s. People weren’t … _forced to live in Hoovervilles._

It made Steve’s teeth ache from how hard he was gritting them, and he wondered who was responsible for these people’s misfortune, who was the cause of their destitution.

He wondered where _he_ was. He hoped to God that wherever his future self was, he wasn’t letting this stand.

As they neared the outermost building, Steve’s eyes focused on a man standing and, ostensibly, waiting for them.

It took a moment for Steve to realize that the man was wearing a _very_ familiar outfit, slightly altered to fit some sort of backpack, but the colors, the _star…_

“Well, well, well,” said the man. “Look what the cat dragged in.”

“Can it, Wilson,” the Soldier said.

“Who are you?” Stark demanded.

The man stuck out his hand, smiling a gap-toothed smile. “Sam Wilson, also known as Captain America. Current leader of the Avengers.”

### Bucky

Bucky could tell the Avengers were taken aback by Sam and he smiled under his bandana as he stepped forward, the kid still in tow.

“Who’s this?” Sam murmured, his eyes scanning the kid (who was staring, wide-eyed, at Sam) and the sniper (still glaring, how typically boring) in Thor’s unyielding grip.

Bucky jostled the kid’s arm, and the kid stammer, “M-Maximilian Greyson.”

“Other guy’s a sniper, hasn’t said a word,” Bucky added.

Sam nodded and said, “Pass them off to Dunphy, Soldier. Thor, can you go with him?”

“Aye,” said Thor, nodding, then indicating Bucky should lead them off.

Before he did, Bucky said, “Strange?”

“Already waiting for us,” said Sam. “I’ll take them to him.”

“Hang on,” Stark said. “So, I’m seeing an enormous ‘A’ on the side of that building over there, so shouldn’t we be meeting in _there?_ ”

“We definitely could,” Sam replied. “But we only use that for training and official meetings. The rest of the time, the Compound acts as a hospital, a therapy center, temporary stay for new arrivals, and the drop off for new supplies. The Hills community uses it more than we do, honestly.”

“The Center is way cozier,” Piper chimed in before kicking gently at Sam’s ankle. “How was D.C., huh?”

“Yeah, sorry to drag you away from the Hill, Sam.” Bucky smirked.

Sam snorted. “You kidding? I was so _glad_ you called me back. Man, I _hate_ paperwork and politics.”

Bucky chuckled and then set off at a quick pace towards the Compound, Thor on his heels. As he walked away, he could pick up a few of the past Avengers asking questions like, _“So, what do you mean, you’re Captain America? What happened to Rogers?!”_

Ha, sucks to be Sam. Bucky grinned.

“I must express my concern, Friend Soldier,” Thor said as they walked. “I have heard nothing from Asgard the entire time I have been here.”

“Oh,” said Bucky. How do you tell an alien prince who could squish you like a bug that his home world had been destroyed?

“I think that’s something you should talk to the Valkyrie about,” he finally said.

“There are still Valkyries?” Thor asked, astonished.

“Uh, just the one that I know of,” Bucky said. “She’s currently living in Norway, I think.”

“That is a … country, on this planet, correct?” Thor checked.

“Yep,” said Bucky. “I’ll, uh, try to arrange a call. Or ask any of us, really.”

Thor nodded thoughtfully and thankfully dropping the subject and allowing Bucky to guide them to the Compound.

The Compound wasn’t in its full glory. Too much of it had been scavenged for Halfway Hills. However, a one-story building made of concrete stood low against the hill it was settled against. There was enough room for a large room which acted like a urgent care for the Hills’ residents, several meeting rooms for dignitaries meeting with the Avengers, and several laboratories were people like Banner occasionally worked.

Outside the Compound, Dunphy was holding a class with a group of young teens, all ranging from eleven to sixteen. Bucky watched as a twelve year old, Eric, took down the much larger fifteen year old Jason with some effort.

“Good, good!” Dunphy said to Eric. “But remember your footwork.”

Dennis Dunphy was a large, muscular, barrel-chested man. His ginger hair and beard were going grey, but his voice still rang out commandingly. Despite how intimidating Dunphy looked, and despite how gruff he sounded, he was one of the kinder people Bucky had met in the twenty-first century.

“Dunphy!” Bucky called out.

Dunphy glanced over at Bucky, then scanned over Thor, Greyson, and the sniper.

“Hate to interrupt,” Bucky said quietly. “But Sam and I have a situation. Can you get them to a holding cell?”

Dunphy looked Greyson and the sniper up and down. “Forson?”

Bucky nodded once.

Dunphy’s mouth twisted for a moment while he thought, then he barked, “Kat!”

Sixteen year old Kat stepped forward. “Yeah?”

“Wrap it up, cool ‘em down,” said Dunphy.

“Got it!” She turned towards the group while Bucky and Thor took their charges after Dunphy, who led them into the Compound.

Despite all the surface-level destruction, the basements were largely untouched and undamaged in Thanos’ attack, including several holding cells. Dunphy, the head of security at the Hills, was in charge of any and all prisoners that came their way.

Once Greyson and the sniper were settled into separate cells, Dunphy fixed a look at Bucky. “I’ll see what I can get out of them. When’re you interrogating?”

“Probably tomorrow,” Bucky admitted. “There’s … a lot else going on.”

Dunphy’s eyes flickered over to Thor before the man humphed and headed for the security room.

“I’ll see what I can dig up,” he called over his shoulder.

“Thanks,” said Bucky before jerking his head back the way they came at Thor. “Ready?”

“Aye,” said Thor, casting one last look at the prisoners behind them. “So, tell me, what is this A.I.M.? What do they seek?”

“Anarchy, I’m pretty sure,” Bucky replied as he climbed up the stairs. “At least, that’s what some of them say. Pretty sure they just want to rule the world.”

Thor laughed. “What a petty thing!”

“Yeah,” Bucky agreed. “Pretty stupid.”

As he led Thor back down the road towards the Hills community, he took the opportunity to ask Thor about Asgard, which Thor readily answered. Bucky, who had never been to space, found the descriptions of the palace and the cities fascinating, and he was almost disappointed when he led Thor to the Community Center.

The Community Center was one of Bucky’s favorite places to be outside of Wakanda, largely because he’d spearheaded its construction when he and Sam had discussed the horrifying number of displaced and homeless people they’d seen. Helped by several of the younger residents (and Piper and Addison), the Center had gone up swiftly and had become the Hills’ main hub.

The main level was wide open, with a long bar counter along the west wall that sold alcohol, yes, but also served as a coffee and tea bar (not that coffee was as easy to come by, anymore). Tucked away on one end was a smoothie machine, which Bucky fully intended to use as soon as he could.

Along the south wall was a small stage where community members could use to host nights for poetry, karaoke, small productions, or even, a time or two, dance competitions. Between Bucky and the stage were a dozen or so mismatched tables and chairs. To his right, there was a series of small rooms where people could be alone or talk quietly to one another. The last few years had been rough on everyone, and sometimes getting away from everything for a short time was all a person could do.

Stretched out in the middle of the quiet rooms along the north side was a staircase that led to the second floor. The second floor was mostly built onto the hill, so that the sunlights could better light the ground floor. Ringing the second floor, though, was a balcony. On the west side, right where the staircase stopped, was a door that led to the place where most of the current Avengers slept. That door was shut tight, however, since no one was actually inside.

The Center wasn’t filled with people—most people were outside, attending to chores or enjoying the last of the summer’s warmth. But Bucky spied Zee sitting at a table, scribbling away in her notebook, Mikhail fiddling with some sort of radio at another table, and one of the quiet room’s door was shut.

Dr. Strange sat at the bar’s counter, sipping a cup of tea and surrounded by the past and present Avengers.

“I haven’t practiced neurosurgery in quite some time,” Dr. Strange was telling Banner with no small amusement. “I found another calling.”

“Dr. Strange,” said Bucky as he approached. “Thank you for coming.”

Dr. Strange peered over the rim of his cup and raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think this is something I particularly wish to miss. Prince Thor,” he added. “I’m glad you could join us. I am Dr. Stephen Strange, Sorcerer Supreme.”

“A pleasure,” said Thor, bowing slightly.

“And to you. Now!” Dr. Strange clapped his hands together and looked to Sam. “Since we’re all here, shall we take this somewhere more private?”

“Sure thing,” said Sam. “Right this way, guys.”

Bucky followed behind Sam past the counter to the room beyond. It was a rather large room divided into two parts; a kitchen area and a place to sit and relax in. That space had old worn couches Bucky had carefully stitched up, chairs sent over by Thor and Valkyrie as gifts, a beanbag Sam and Bucky made on a dare by Wanda, and lots of blankets knit and crocheted by Piper and Gloria. A door led to the main garden used by the community and was currently open, letting some air flow through the room.

Bucky sat on one of the armchairs while Piper and Addison huddled up on a beanbag. Sam and Wanda sat on the sofa, to Bucky’s left, and the rest of the Avengers and Dr. Strange arranged themselves across the rest of the seats in the room, save Thor, who sat on the ground.

“So, this is the Avenger’s place and all,” said Stark. He gestured to Sam. “With their illustrious leader! But where are the rest?”

“You’re looking at them,” said Sam, amused. “Me, Wanda, Soldier, Addison, and Piper. We’re the Avengers.”

“Captain America, the Winter Soldier, the Scarlet Witch, the Golden Sorceress, and Blue Lightening,” Piper rattled off, smirking.

Stark stops, blinks, and said, “Wait, _what?_ We let some prolific Russian assassin onto the team?”

Natasha coughed.

Stark glared at her. “You don’t count! You work for SHIELD!”

Dr. Strange rolled his eyes and activated the amulet around his chest. The Time Stone’s now-familiar green light bathed the room with its glow as Dr. Strange took a look at the past Avengers, his fingers twitching with red-orange runes flaring at his fingertips.

The past Avengers, for their part, looked at him with varying degrees of impressed, incredulous, and curiousness.

After a long minute, the glow begins to dim and Dr. Strange lowered his hands.

“That is an Infinity Stone,” Thor rumbled.

“It is,” said Dr. Strange as the Stone vanished once more from view. “And I am its Keeper.”

Thor nodded, understanding, and said, “Well met, then, Keeper Strange.”

“ _Doctor_ Strange, if you don’t mind.”

“Wait, what’s an Infinity Stone?” Stark demanded.

“You have already run into one, my friend!” Thor said.

“The Tesseract,” Natasha guessed.

“Indeed! They are Stones of great power, and six there are. I know only of the location of two—well, three, now! The Tesseract I have taken to Asgard after our battle with the Chitauri. Asgard is where the Reality Stone also resides, and here with our friend is the Time Stone!”

“Time?” Rogers asked. “Reality? What do those mean?”

Thor eyed Dr. Strange’s amulet with mild curiosity. “The Stones all govern some aspect of existence, of the fabric of the universe. Space, Soul, Mind, Power, Reality, Time, these are what they draw their power from. They were formed long ago, when Celestials still roamed the universe…”

Bucky tuned Thor out, having heard this before, and instead leaned forward and said to Dr. Strange, “So? Out of time, different dimension, what?”

Dr. Strange stroked his goatee thoughtfully as he examined the Avengers, who had quieted down at Bucky’s question, watching and waiting for Dr. Strange’s answer.

Dr. Strange sighed and said, “Unless we want to wipe their memories—” Bucky carefully didn’t flinch at the thought, “—Then their going back is going to branch off into another timeline.”

“Is that safe?” Sam asked. “Another timeline, I mean.”

“If I’m there when they’re sent back? It should be fine,” said Dr. Strange. “So, no, telling them everything won’t destroy this reality. It’ll change _their_ timeline, which will eventually break off into its own alternate universe, untouching of ours, not affecting ours in the slightest.”

“Great.” Sam sighed and leaned back against the sofa. “Best news I’ve heard all day. I love not destroying all of time and space.”

“ _Same,_ ” said Piper.

“How long will be we here?” Rogers asked. “How do we get back?”

Dr. Strange stood up, adjusting the collar of his cloak. “I need to look into both of those questions, Captain Rogers, as I have an answer for neither. Give me a few days to consult my fellows as well as the tomes we have on time travel, and I should have a clearer idea of what to do.”

“Awesome,” said Stark. “‘Cause I don’t want to be stranded in this future.”

“Call me if there’s an emergency,” Dr. Strange told to Sam and Bucky. “Otherwise, don’t bother.”

“Sure thing,” said Sam easily.

Dr. Strange smirked at them all and then swept dramatically out of the room.

### Steve

Once the wizard had left, Steve sat back against the armchair, head reeling. 

He felt tired and wired at the same time, and his stomach was incessant at reminding him that he needed to eat, and soon.

Almost as if he heard Steve’s thought, Sam glanced around the room as he returned from seeing Dr. Strange out and sighed. “Alright, when’s the last time you guys ate?”

“Eating is for the weak,” said Piper before snickering when Addison poked her in the side.

Sam laughed and said, “Okay, but for us squishy humans, it’s kinda a necessity. So, let’s whip something up fast, alright?”

Sam and the Soldier ended up pulling out fixing for sandwiches, so for a few minutes, Steve occupied himself by making himself a small (well, fairly large) stack of sandwiches.

“So,” said Dr. Banner quietly. “How are you holding up? Being in the future and all?”

“Well,” said Steve. “Not that unusual, really.”

Dr. Banner looked chagrined. “Right. Uh, any tips?”

Steve honestly wasn’t the best person to ask, seeing as how his coping methods with suddenly finding himself in the future had included copious amounts of avoiding SHIELD mandated therapists, punching bags, and staring blankly at walls.

But, well, that was how _Steve Rogers_ coped with finding himself in the future, not how _Captain America_ coped, and Dr. Banner probably didn’t want to Steve Rogers-patented way, so he said, “Wait and observe, roll with anything that comes your way.”

He thought he heard the Soldier snort softly, but when he looked over, the Soldier was busy stacking several slices of cheese between two slices of bread.

“Right,” said Dr. Banner. “Thanks.”

Steve shrugged and carried his sandwiches back to the wooden chair he’d claimed. He found Thor there, examining one of the other wooden chairs.

“Everything good?” Steve asked as he sat down.

“Yes,” said Thor, running his large fingers over the carvings in the wood. “This is Asgardian style, though the wood is of Earth.”

“It was a gift,” said Wanda. “From your future self, last time he was here.”

“Ah.” Thor’s expression cleared. “That indeed makes sense! Well, I have not carved in many years now, but it is good, that I could make something useful to such heroes as you.”

Wanda grinned. “You’re a hero too, Thor.”

Thor waved his hand. “Well, we shall see if I can hold the title, after you and I have battled at this _Sorry!_ game!”

Wanda’s grinned widened, showing more teeth. “We _shall._ ”

Steve stuffed a sandwich in his mouth and listened to Thor and Wanda talk about this and that, about where all the furniture came from and who made it. It didn’t interest him particularly, but it passed the time well.

Ten minutes later, everyone had ploughed through at least half their sandwiches, so Sam sighed and said, “Alright, Q&A time.” He glanced over at the Soldier. “Do you wanna…”

“Snap first,” said the Soldier, tearing off chunks of his sandwich and slipping it into his mouth under the bandana. He’d removed his goggles to reveal tired blue-grey eyes that sent a pang of pain through Steve, but the bandana stayed firmly around his lower face, moved slightly to one side so he could poke food up into his mouth.

It nettled Steve, though he wasn’t sure why. Why would the Soldier hide his identity? Steve had never met the Soldier, not back in 2012, and certainly not back in the War. So what was it about the Soldier’s identity that it could have potentially wrecked the space-time continuum?

But Sam moved on before Steve could press about the Soldier.

“So, the Avengers,” he said. “Man, where do I even start?”

“Cover 2015 and 2016,” Wanda suggested. “As a starting point.”

Steve frowned. “Those two years?”

“Yeah,” said Sam. “I mean, you and me, we didn’t meet until 2014, so I was still kinda a newbie when Sokovia happened.”

Barton frowned. “The country?”

“Yeah, man,” said Sam, who then launched into some completely _crazy_ story that included _sentient robots_ and _cities floating in the sky_ , and Steve wasn’t entirely sure he would have believed Sam, if not for the videos Sam pulled up on his phone where, yeah, there were robots and a flying city, and _wow._

“After that,” said Sam, pulling his phone back onto his lap. “The world kinda wanted oversight, you know? SHIELD was gone—”

“SHIELD was gone?” Stark interrupted.

“Oh, right.” Sam grimaced. “It’s how Steve and I met, back in 2014. Infiltrated by, uh, by HYDRA.” He shot a look at Steve, who very carefully did _not_ punch something.

“What,” he said tightly instead, and silently applauded himself on his restrained response.

“Uh, yeah,” said Sam, then looked at the Soldier, who shrugged and shook his head minutely. Sam looked back at Steve and said, “That’s a _whole_ other can of worms. I’ll save that for tomorrow, ‘cause … Yeah, I’m gonna need to dig up some files. Anyway, SHIELD was gone, so people started making the Accords…”

Sam detailed the Accords, and Steve’s fury only grew more and more as he listened to the details of the Accords.

“So we had no lawyers present, no other choice but to retire or essentially exist at a committee's behest,” he said carefully.

“I’m sure it wasn’t that bad,” Romanov said, apparently unphased.

Sam shrugged. “I mean, me and a couple other people were arrested and sent to an underwater prison with no trial.”

“But you were breaking the law,” Stark pointed out, and Steve’s fist clenched.

Sam shook his head. “Man, I’m a U.S. citizen, it is my Constitutional right to have an attorney and a trial. I mean, I agree we need oversight, but man, couldn’t there have been _some_ way of doing it without violating the Geneva Convention?”

The arm of the chair creaked under Steve's grip.

“Sam,” the Soldier interrupted. “Give us five minutes. Rogers, with me.”

Sam nodded and sat back. “Sure thing, man.”

“Oh, c’mon,” Stark protested, but Wanda said, “Stark, we need to have a conversation about me, my brother, Ultron, and Ross, and I don’t know how many people you want around for that…”

The Soldier stood and gestured to Steve, _c’mon already_ , and Steve silently rose to his feet, his anger kicking up a notch as the Soldier led them outside into a large sprawling garden filled with raised beds of vegetables and herbs and long rows of taller plants. There was a small gardening shed huddled next to the treeline with a few pots stacked outside of it. There were maybe a dozen people working on one side of the garden in the sinking sunlight, about twenty feet away, so the Soldier led Steve to the more unoccupied half where it looked like most of the plants had already been harvested.

“You didn’t have to separate me,” he said tightly, coming to a halt a few feet away from the Soldier. “I can control myself.”

The Soldier shrugged. “I know.”

And then he didn’t say anything else, leaving Steve standing in the middle of a bunch of plants, fuming. Instead of looking at him, the Soldier knelt next to one of the raised beds and ran his flesh fingers over some of the browning plants.

Steve wanted to shout, to _hit_ something, over something that _hadn’t even happened to him yet_. But still, here and now? It _had_ happened. It had happened nearly _ten years previously_. And there was nothing for Steve to punch, nothing for Steve to protest over, because what was there for him to say?

 _Who could agree to that?_ he fumed inwardly. _How could anyone want to enslave people?_

Steve wasn’t proud of the time period he came from—there was so much he wish he could go back and change, so many things he wished he could go back and advocate for. But in this time? People were products, lives were commodities, and violations to privacy and basic, decent rights were waved off.

It was _infuriating._

Sam had said that the Avengers back in 2016 didn’t even have _lawyers_ present. That they had had _three days_ to read over a massive document and sign away their lives or else be forced to retire.

What kind of choice was that? Retirement wasn’t so bad, but what if a person was like Steve, or Wanda? If they couldn’t step out of the suit like Stark or go off-world like Thor, and their very _existence_ was a violation? Steve wasn’t even thirty yet, and Wanda, hell, ten years ago, Wanda would have been, what? Around fifteen years old. The rest of their lives, breaking the global law by being alive and unable to help people.

It grated on Steve, that _this_ was the future he’d helped bring about in some way. That _this_ was the future he had put that plane down for.

“Feeling better?” the Soldier asked quietly, not looking over at him.

“Yes,” Steve lied.

The Soldier gave him a look that said, _I know you’re lying, idiot_ , and it was so similar to the look Bucky always gave him that Steve momentarily forgot his anger as pain and grief welled up in his chest.

“I just don’t get how no one protested these Accords,” he said quietly.

“You did,” the Soldier said. “You retired, then kill orders were put on me without assurance of my guilt. You stepped in, saved my life, and became a fugitive.”

Steve’s brows rose. “Well,” he said. “It was the right thing to do.”

The Soldier’s eyes crinkled with a smile. “You’re an idiot,” he said, a touch to fond to be biting.

Steve looked at the Soldier and said, “Are we friends?”

The Soldier waggled his metal arm in a so-so motion. “Becoming a fugitive with me isn’t exactly a _small_ deal.”

Steve let out a laugh that was more of a breath of air. “Sure, whatever you say. Sounds like a Tuesday to me.”

 _He sounded like a jerk_. Steve nearly groaned at himself, but the Soldier snorted.

“Yeah, you don’t do things by half-measures,” the Soldier said.

Steve flushed. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” There was the fond tone in his voice again. “I doubt you could be a bigger asshole than me.”

“Yeah?” Steve raised an eyebrow. “You seem pretty nice, gotta say.”

“You’ve caught me on an off-day,” the Soldier said, and Steve laughed again, which sounded more like an actual laugh this time.

“Let’s head back in,” the Soldier said. “Wanda’s probably done talking to Stark and Banner now.”

They trooped back in, and Steve did, in fact, feel a bit better. His anger thrummed under his skin, but it wasn’t as all-encompassing.

Back inside, Piper, Addison, Thor, and Barton were nowhere to be seen. Stark was pacing and Banner sat on the couch, head in his hands. Romanov leaned against the wall, eyebrow raised.

Wanda gave them a tight smile as they returned and said, “Better?”

“Quite,” said the Soldier. “Smoothie time.”

Wanda and Sam rolled their eyes, but followed the Soldier back out behind the bar, where Piper, Addison, Thor, and Barton were busy making smoothies. The young woman who had been sitting by the stage was gone, though the man with the radio was still tinkering with it.

“Hey,” said Barton, twirling a straw between his fingers. “Drama over?”

Sam snorted. “Not by a _long_ shot.”

“Okay,” said Barton, spreading his arms welcomingly. “Lay it on us.”

“We’re gonna skip ahead a little bit,” said Sam as Steve took a seat at one of the tables, the Soldier sliding in opposite to him.

Sam took a deep breath. “In 2018, half the life in the universe was completely wiped out. It’s called the Snap.”

### Bucky

The sun was setting when Bucky found Rogers standing at the treeline, looking out at the lake bordering the Compound.

“Hey,” he said quietly, slipping up beside Rogers, standing quietly with him.

Rogers didn’t say anything, and Bucky accepted this, watching the wind blow over the orange sun-dappled water.

It was peaceful, like his life in Wakanda had been. Bucky liked coming out to this spot, liked watching the water move, oblivious to his problems and concerns. It was soothing, to remember that nothing was permanent, that one day, no one would remember him or care about his life and his mistakes. He was a relic alone in a future that didn’t want him, but it wouldn’t be forever.

“So that’s who all these people are,” Rogers said abruptly. “They were…”

“They were dusted,” Bucky affirmed. “Like me. We came back, and, well. Houses were sold, bank accounts closed, possessions lost. People had nowhere to go.”

“But it’s been two years,” Rogers said.

“These things take time,” Bucky said softly. “There was a lot to recover from.”

Steve stared at him, the intensity of his gaze burning into the side of Bucky’s face. “Tell me.”

Bucky sighed through his nose. “The whole world is reeling. I mean, the Snap happened, and entire species were lost. The bees were all but gone. Orangutans went extinct in 2021. Animals like the blue whales and the tigers are critically endangered. There was an ecological disaster, an economical one, an agricultural on, and _everyone_ had lost at least _someone_ close to them. From what I gather, those five years were utter chaos as power vacuums opened up and disease swept across the panicking populations. The global population went from nearly eight billion to over three and a half, and kept dropping as there were upticks in violence, suicide, and famine.

“Those five years were rough,” Bucky said. Rogers was listening intently. “I’ve read some of the books, the blog entries … I mean, it seemed like a lot of people just wanted to give up, you know? We heard from Rocket—he lives out in space—and he says that that sort of thing is common, for worlds Thanos visited. Rocket had a friend, Gamora. Thanos stole her when he killed half her world, and her people didn’t survive it. She was the last of her race. If things had continued on, I’ve no doubt the human race would have survived—we’re nothing if not tenacious—but I think it would have taken at least a decade and a half for us to really begin to recover.

“When you guys reversed the Snap, suddenly there were people who hadn’t been alive for five years. For us, one blink we were in 2018, the next, we were in 2023. Our entire lives were gone. So I started Halfway Hills.” He shrugged. “I wanted to do _something_ , and there were a lot of people who needed help.”

He looked back at the town. “People of color, queers, disabled people, anyone the systems don’t favor, they can come here and find a place to live.”

It was more than Bucky had spoken at one time in … years. Decades. This whole century. His throat hurt, and his tongue felt numb. He closed his mouth with a snap.

“That’s incredible,” Rogers said, looking at Bucky with a new light in his eyes, a new respect. It warmed Bucky, to know that even when Rogers doesn’t know who Bucky is—was—he can still _matter._

For a bit, at least.

“Yeah?” he said, hoping he didn’t sound as pathetic as he did in his own head.

“Yeah,” Rogers said.

Bucky smiled under his bandana, which promptly slid off once Rogers opened his mouth again.

“And where am I in this recovery?” Rogers asked quietly. “Sam treats me like a friend, Wanda clearly has a history with me, I apparently went on the run with you … Except neither Piper or Addison knows me and people around here, they don’t greet me with the same friendliness as they do with you. So, if I’m your friend, why am I not here?”

Bucky looked back over the water so he didn’t have to look at Rogers.

He chose his words carefully, precisely, and said after a long moment, “You’re still around, Rogers. You spend more time in D.C. than you do up here in Upstate New York.”

“Oh,” said Rogers quietly.

Bucky looked at him out of the corner of his eyes and said, quietly, “We’re still here, Rogers. We’re still fighting.”

Rogers didn’t say anything, just stared out at the water.

Bucky pressed his lips together and stood with him, watching the sun set in silence together.


	2. a tired soldier

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from [here.](https://cardiamachina.co.vu/post/111001099623)

### Bucky

Sam quietly opened the door and slipped inside, shutting it behind him.

“Hey, man,” he said.

Bucky, sitting on his bed, reading _Starship Troopers_ , smiled wanly. “Hey, Sam,” he said. “Come on in.”

Sam crossed over to Bucky’s bed and sat down next to him, leaning back against the wall with a groan.

“You ever wonder what it’d be like to have a peaceful life?” he asked.

“Every damn day since 1926,” Bucky murmured, mindful of the Avengers sleeping the next room over.

Sam snorted. “Yeah, I bet. Hell-raiser, huh?”

“God,” Bucky groaned. “He _never stopped._ ”

“It’s strange, isn’t it?” Sam asked. “Seeing him … like that.”

“Yeah, it is,” Bucky admitted. His lips twisted. “You get it.”

“Oh, I do.” Sam stretched out his legs with a groan. “I can’t believe how strange our lives are, sometimes. Sometimes, it makes me wish I never let him and Nat in, y’know?”

Bucky jostled Sam with his elbow. “Liar.”

“You got me,” said Sam, with far less bite than was normal. But then again, Sam had also lost his best friend, too.

Bucky bookmarked his place and set his book aside, groaning a bit as he stretched.

“You gonna tell them tomorrow?” Sam asked, dark eyes watching him.

“Probably,” Bucky admitted. “I don’t really like the idea of wandering around with a bandana over my face for an undetermined period of time.”

Sam snorted. “Saves us from having to look at your ugly mug, though.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Har, har.”

“You don’t _have_ to tell them,” Sam said. “I mean, I can send you to New York, finish rebuilding that school.”

Bucky considered that. He wondered how it would feel to have Steve so close again and for him to never know that the Soldier who comforted him by the lake actually used to be his best friend from the twentieth century, Bucky Barnes.

It was a tantalizing idea, if only to save Bucky’s heart some wear and tear.

(Not that they was much that wasn’t torn and shredded, honestly.)

“I don’t know,” he said at last. He looked over at Sam. “Is it bad of me that part of me _doesn’t_ want to tell him?”

“No,” said Sam. “Shoot, if he’d come from 2016 or something, I’d seriously consider not telling him about what _I’ve_ been up to.”

There was that glint in Sam’s eyes, the long-buried grief and anger.

Bucky’s lips twisted. “I’ll tell him. If we’re creating an alternate reality by letting them know about the Snap, might as well go all-out.”

“Are you saying that because you want to help your other self, or because you want Steve to know what you’ve been through, in your own words?”

Well, it certainly wasn’t to help his other self. Best help for that poor schmuck would be a bullet through the head, put down like a dog.

And Bucky couldn’t deny, that it would be nice, to tell Steve about what happened to him on his own terms. Instead of reading reports and seeing pictures, Steve would know _from him_. Bucky could tell him about the time he saw his own liver outside of his body, or about the scorch marks on his temple after every visit to the Chair.

 _He_ could tell Steve how much shit he went through, and then he could tell Steve that if he was going to abandon his Bucky, to at least send in Romanov to give him some sleep. Or, if Steve didn’t want Bucky dead, to put him in Cryo and never take him out.

Bucky could be in control of his own story, telling Steve. _Bucky_ could be the one to drive Steve away, consciously, instead of being all but blindsided by it later.

Sam sighed. “It’s the second one, isn’t it?”

Bucky shrugged, not denying it.

“Look, man, I know you don’t like thinking about the Winter Soldier stuff, but you were a victim,” Sam said.

Bucky raised an eyebrow. “You sure saw it that way in 2016.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “So I was pissed at you right then. _You_ didn’t have to deal with mopey Steve for two years.”

“I had shit to figure out,” Bucky said without much effort, the route answer.

“I know you did,” Sam said. “And I’m not saying what you should or shouldn’t do, but punishing that Steve … I don’t think that’s the answer.”

Bucky turned his head to face Sam. “Then what is the answer?”

But Sam just shook his head. “I don’t know, man. I really don’t.”

“Yeah,” said Bucky. “Same.”

“I’m sending Wanda to go pick up Colonel Rhodes from New York tomorrow,” Sam said. “In the morning, you and me have some A.I.M. people to interrogate.”

“Whee,” said Bucky flatly.

Sam snickered. “It’ll be fun, I’m sure.”

“You can tell them afterwards,” Sam said, then hesitated. “Do you want us there as support? You know, no one is too old to have moral support.” This was said a bit more playfully, so Bucky dutifully rolled his eyes and whacked Sam’s shoulder (gently).

“Shuddup, whippersnapper,” he said.

Sam grinned and said, “I just tell it like it is.”

“I would,” said Bucky. “I would like you there. If. If you don’t mind.”

“Nah, I don’t.” Sam cracked his neck.

“Same for you,” said Bucky. “If you need moral support, or whatever, you just let me know, too, okay?”

“I will,” said Sam. “Hey, we’ll get through this.” Sam bumped their shoulders together. “Asshole.”

“Fuck off,” Bucky said automatically. “Wanna watch something?”

“ _Yes,_ ” said Sam fervently, which was how Bucky found himself watching reruns of _Doctor Who_ with Sam at two A.M.

It was good, Bucky thought, to have friends. Especially friends that (probably) wouldn’t leave him.

The next day, Bucky emerged from his room to see all the past Avengers sprawled across his living room in various states of disarray.

The small apartments above the Compound were large enough to fit Bucky, Sam, Wanda, and Piper and Addison without much room left over. As such, he found Barton, Stark, and Banner hunched in on the futon (all dead asleep), Thor on the floor with a blanket covering his body, and Rogers and Natasha on the only two chairs. When Bucky closed his door quietly behind him, he found Natasha’s eyes, dark and glittering, on him.

He gave her a small wave before making his way towards the door, as fast and silent as possible.

He heard Rogers stir back in the room before he managed to slip out, and so he wasn’t at all surprised to find Rogers out the door a couple beats after him.

“Morning,” said Bucky, aiming for casual.

“Good morning,” said Rogers, whose hair was sticking up ridiculously.

“If it is a good morning, which I doubt,” Bucky replied, then smirked at the confused look on Rogers’ face and added, “Eeyore. Blame Addison.”

The expression on his old friend’s face didn’t change, but regardless, he said, “Oh. Right.”

Bucky snorted softly and led them downstairs, where Addison and Piper were already working on breakfast.

“Morning,” Addison said, tossing a grin over her shoulder. She was whisking some eggs, a book of mythology—Vietnamese from the looks of it—was propped up on the counter by a couple more books.

“Morning,” Bucky replied.

“You’re late!” Piper called from where she was minding an enormous stack of toast. “Can you get the potatoes, O great assassin chopper?” 

“Can’t,” Bucky said. “Gotta meet Sam. But I’m sure this lug will do it.” And he pushed Rogers into the kitchen, laughing silently at the look of surprised consternation on Rogers’ face.

“Uh, how can I help?” Rogers asked, and was immediately bombarded by Piper’s orders at how she wanted the potatoes.

“Wanda said she was getting Colonel Rhodes?” Addison asked as Bucky moved towards the back door.

“She is,” Bucky said. “She should be back by noon. And Banner’s calling in around eleven.”

She nodded. “We’ll keep them occupied. A tour, perhaps.”

“And kickball!” Piper butted in. “Think we could get all the Avengers to play a game with us? Dibs on Thor.”

“Dibs on _Natasha,_ ” Bucky corrected.

“Dibs,” Addison said immediately.

A look of horror crossed Piper’s face. “Oh my god, you’re _right_. My team is going to _die._ ”

Bucky and Addison snorted, and Bucky finally headed out the door and into the garden into the early morning sunshine.

Many of the Hills’ residents were moving about already, from little kids streaking through the grass to adults eating on their porches or their meager front lawns, chatting away to one another. Bucky waved hi to Gloria and returned a greeting to Doreen, but most of the denizens recognized that he had somewhere to be and so beyond a few ‘good mornings’, they left him alone.

It was a soothing walk to the Compound. The sun stretched across the lake and brushed across the plant life. Birds twittered, a few smaller animals darted along the tree line, and out here, so far from most of the rest of civilization, things were quiet. Peaceful.

Bucky loved it.

This wasn’t where he’d expected to end up, an actual _Avenger_ , but he didn’t mind it. He didn’t despise it. In some ways, it was his way of making up for all the hurt he’d caused for decades.

Still, sometimes his bones ached and all he wanted to do was curl up and rest. He felt so old, so tired sometimes, it was all he could do to roll out of bed in the morning.

Maybe sometime, in the future, he’d get to retire. Find a house somewhere in the middle of nowhere, far away from everyone else, and just … _rest._

God, what he wouldn’t give to rest.

When he pushed his way into the Compound and made his way down the stairs to the security room, he found Sam and Dunphy already waiting.

“Any of them say anything?” Bucky asked Dunphy as he shut the door behind him.

“Kid’s a chatterbox,” Dunphy said. “Sniper ain’t said anything of use yet.”

“What’s the kid said?” Sam asked.

Dunphy grinned wryly. “Said he was a chatterbox, just not about anything _useful_. Looked ‘im up. Maximilian Greyson’s right, born in Oxnard, Cali to Marsha and Ryland, both dusted in the Snap. He just turned eighteen last week, went missing seven years ago.”

“After his parents vanished.” Sam sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Damn. You think he fell in with A.I.M. ‘round then?”

“Only one way to find out,” said Bucky. “I have a feeling Greyson’s the bigger deal here. I’m gonna take a crack at the sniper first, see if he knows anything.”

Dunphy passed over the keycard to the sniper’s cell.

“Want me in there?” Sam asked as Bucky took it.

“For the kid? Yeah,” said Bucky. “I don’t think good cop’s gonna work on the sniper.”

Sam pressed his lips together, but stayed where he was as Bucky left the room and entered the sniper’s interrogation room.

The sniper glared at him as Bucky entered the room, but it didn’t faze Bucky. Why would it? He’d been through so much worse.

“Hey there,” said Bucky, allowing some of the Winter Soldier to settle into his expression, his movements. “Let’s see what you know.”

By the end of his session with the sniper, Bucky had learned his name—Carl Lee—and what he was going—protecting an A.I.M. investment.

“Well,” said Sam thoughtfully afterwards. “Given that there was nothing on him, no notes or USB drives or whatever, that kinda leaves…”

“The kid,” Bucky finished. “Yeah.”

“How is the _kid_ an investment?” Sam mused.

Bucky _looked_ at him.

“Alright, alright,” said Sam, holding up his hands. “Man I hate that. So, good cop bad cop?”

“More like good cop, silent cop,” said Bucky as they stopped outside of Greyson’s door. “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” Sam said, swiping the key card and entering the room.

“Hey, kid,” said Sam, easy as anything.

Greyson looked up. There were deep circles under his eyes and his lanky, unwashed hair fell around his ears. Bucky focused on breathing and not seeing himself in the kid.

 _We aren’t going to hurt him,_ he reminded himself. _He’s going to be fine._

“What do you want?” the kid asked sulkily.

“Just a few answers,” said Sam, sitting across the table from the kid while Bucky leaned against the wall by the door.

“I’m not going to betray anybody!” Greyson snapped.

“Even though they want to hurt a lot of innocent people?” Sam asked.

Greyson glared.

“Well,” said Sam. “That’s not why we’re talking about today.”

Greyson’s brow furrowed. “It’s not?”

“No,” said Sam. “What I want to know is not locations or master plans or any of that—it’s this investment Lee mentioned.”

Greyson looked down at his lap.

“Do you know what it is?” Sam pressed.

But the kid didn’t say another word to them, and when Sam and Bucky left forty minutes later, they had no answers.

“I’ll keep going at ‘em,” Dunphy said as he took their key cards back.

“Thanks,” said Sam as he and Bucky headed out.

“Well, that was a large waste of time,” Bucky said dryly.

“Maybe, maybe not,” said Sam as they headed up the stairs. “Depends on how committed he is to A.I.M. We’ll see what Dunphy comes up with.”

As they came up to the main floor and past the several security doors to the communal areas, Sam snagged Bucky’s arm and regarded him for a moment.

“What?” Bucky demanded.

“Nothing,” said Sam. “Just—We’re going to need to call a meeting, soon, about this A.I.M. situation.”

Bucky nodded. “Tonight.”

“You sure you’re gonna be able to handle that?” Sam asked.

Bucky dug his metal fingers into his thigh. “Tonight,” he repeated.

Sam watched him for a long moment before nodding slowly. “Okay,” he said at last. “Tonight. After everything.”

Bucky nodded and stood up, chair scraping back. “Gonna go take a run,” he said shortly before heading out.

Behind him, he heard Sam hiss to the AI, “Why do supersoldier try to literally outrun their problems, FRIDAY?”

“Unclear,” the AI responded, but if it said anything else, Bucky didn’t hear; he was already out the door.

### Steve

Piper and Addison did indeed take them on the promised tour, once all the Avengers had stumbled (or sauntered, in the case of Romanov and Stark) downstairs. The young women were dressed far more casually that day, in t-shirts and jeans. This let Steve spy another tattoo of small script around Addison’s right bicep and the fact that the metal gauntlets seemed to be melded into Piper’s skin, a fact that was so horrifying Steve wasn’t sure how he was supposed to process that. But no one else asked about it, and Steve kept silent, unsure if it was appropriate.

There were quite a few people about. Steve saw people of all ages and races, dressed in an eclectic mix of old and repaired clothes to clothes he just knew someone had made by hand to clothes he thought had probably been stolen out of a store, if the impression he’d gotten from the Soldier the night before was any indication.

People called out greetings to Piper and Addison, stared curiously at the Avengers, and most kept out of their way, though a few paused to talk to them.

The first were two men, one dark-haired with bags under his eyes, the other Latino and affable.

“This is Scott, and here’s Luis,” Addison said, gesturing to each of them.

Luis’ eyes were on Steve and the others, eyes wide. “Whoa, man, are those, like, _the Avengers?_ ”

“Yep,” Piper said, smirking. “Time travel hijinks.”

Scott groaned while Luis, somehow, looked even more excited.

“Dude, that is _so cool!_ ” Luis crowed. “So, like, when are they from? How’ll they get back?

“2012,” Addison replied. “And we’re not sure yet.”

“Well, welcome to Halfway Hills,” Scott said. “Home of the destitute and the ex-Avengers.”

“Wait, you used to be an Avenger?” Stark demanded.

Scott shifted. “Well, not like, _officially_ , but…” He looked at the Soldier.

“Go for it,” said Piper, giving him two thumbs up.

“Sweet,” said Scott. “I helped Cap out during a fight in Germany back in 2016.”

“Over the Accords,” Steve said.

“Yeah,” Scott agreed. “I got captured, pled, went on house arrest for, like, two years, yada yada yada. Some other stuff happened.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Dr. Banner.

“So what happened?” Barton asked. “Why are you two here?”

“Oh, yeah, man,” said Luis. “‘Cause we got nowhere else to go.”

“My daughter’s here,” Scott added. “One of her friends brought her here, and my ex-wife and her husband are still sorting things out, so I said I’d stay here and keep an eye out while they did that.”

“That’s rough,” said Barton, but Scott just waved him off.

“I get to spend time with my daughter,” he said. “That’s all I ever wanted.”

“Hey, Scott!” someone shouted from deeper within the town. “Light’s out again!”

“Gotta go,” said Scott, grimacing. “Nice meeting you guys!”

He and Luis headed off, waving, before vanishing into the maze of houses.

“Are there any other Avengers, current or not, here?” Thor asked.

“Uh,” said Piper. “No, don’t think so?”

Addison shook her head and said, “Let’s keep going.”

They said hi to Doreen Green, woman in her mid-thirties with short brown hair and a bright smile. She was, apparently, head of the gardens and was quite good at keeping squirrels and birds out of the harvest. There was Gloria, an older black woman whose greying hair was pulled back in a bun as she showed a young boy how to sew. There was Felix, a middle aged man with a light German accent who was busy fixing a door, and Zee, an older teenaged girl who paused to ask Addison a question about some Russian fairytale before scribbling some notes down in a journal.

“So, where are we going?” Stark asked, tapping his fingers against his thigh, his eyes darting every which way.

Piper lit up. “To a field—”

“Pip,” Addison groaned.

“For kickball, right?” Steve asked. He had no idea what kickball was, but it sounded like some sort of sport, and honestly, he could really use some exercise.

“How many times do I have to remind everyone that I have a _heart condition?_ ” Stark demanded.

“Feel free to head over to the Compound,” Addison said. “There’s some neat tech there, and Dr. Banner might be interested in the medical wing.”

“Done,” Stark said instantly, already wheeling around the head off.

“Be back before eleven!” Addison called after them.

“I’ll make sure of it,” Dr. Banner promised before hurrying after Stark.

“Now then!” Piper clapped her hands together and rubbed them. “Here’re the rules—”

It was baseball, basically, but with feet. Steve couldn’t help but grin as they broke up into teams.

Addison’s team won, but Steve couldn’t deny it felt _good_ to play. His team, which also had Piper and Barton, was a bit too small for a full game of kickball, but the various modifications made it playable. What was strange, though, was the Steve was sure Piper was holding back. Her kicks were just a little too strong, her dashes to the bases a little too fast. If she was enhanced, then it either wasn’t by much, or she was holding back.

Again, Steve kept his questions to himself. If there was one thing he’d learned about the twenty-first century, it was that trust and secrets were precious commodities, and Steve wanted to play his cards close to his chest until he had a better understanding of the people around him and what they wanted from him.

When they made it back to the Center a few minutes before eleven, Steve found that Sam and the Soldier had scavenged up some clothing for everyone.

“Gloria’s stores,” Sam explained as Steve gratefully took a new shirt offered to him by the Soldier. “There’s a washroom upstairs and a bathroom through there.” He motioned towards one of the closed doors to the northeast.

The Center, again, wasn’t packed, but there were about twenty or so people sitting at tables eating or in groups, chatting, and so everyone escaped into the back room.

There were two people in the kitchen, cooking, but neither of them paid the Avengers any mind, and so they once again gathered in the small sitting area. The back door was open, letting in a breeze which smelled of pine.

Steve settled on the armchair where he’d sat yesterday, and the Soldier paused at his elbow.

“Uh, hi,” said Steve, looking up at him.

The Soldier studied him with those eyes that looked so much like Bucky’s, then shook his head and once again headed for the couch. He was dressed more casually today, in loose dark pants a long-sleeved blue Henley (which showed Steve just how well-muscled the Soldier was), and well-worn boots. The bandana still hung around the lower half of his face, but his hair was freshly washed and brushed. He looked softer, somehow. More at ease.

“Alright,” said Sam, setting down a laptop on the coffee table. “Banner’s almost here…”

After clicking a few things, Sam brought up a little video chat which, after a few seconds, resolved into an image of Dr. Banner, but older. There was more grey around his temples, more lines around his eyes, but he still smiled bright and relaxed.

“Hey, Banner,” said Sam. “You hear me okay?”

“Just fine,” said the older Dr. Banner.

The younger Dr. Banner—who Steve was just going to refer to as Banner—adjusted his glasses.

“Well, this is weird,” he observed.

Dr. Banner cracked a smile. “It is, yeah. Hi.”

Banner’s lips twitched. “Hi. Uh, so…”

“Yeah, time travel,” said Dr. Banner before he launched into some sort of lecture about the science of time travel. Steve was almost immediately lost, but Banner and Stark seemed to follow it alright.

For the next forty minutes, Dr. Banner explained time travel, answered any of their questions (most of which came from Banner and Stark, but a few from Romanov and Thor), and finally concluded with a couple of things that had happened in the Avengers’ past that some wanted clarification on.

Dr. Banner, for example, hadn’t been around during the Accords (because he’d apparently been off in space?) but he had returned to the planet for the Snap and the later time heist, and so explained his side of things.

Steve noted, however, that Dr. Banner made no mention of where their future selves were, now. He didn’t say who had made it and who hadn’t. He filed that away under Suspicious Things About The Future.

A few minutes before the call ended, the Soldier received a text. After muttering something to Sam, he slipped out the back door into the noonday sunlight. Steve tried not to watch him go and instead focus on Dr. Banner, but he failed quite badly.

When Dr. Banner finally signed off, it was nearing noon, and so they broke for lunch.

While Steve devoured his sandwich, Wanda entered the room.

“Hey, Wanda!” Piper called from the kitchen, where she, Addison, and Barton were putting together more sandwiches.

“Where’s Rhodey?” Stark demanded immediately.

“With the Soldier,” Wanda said simply. “I believe they had something to discuss. They’ll be here in a while. In the meantime…” She pulled out a pack of cards from her pocket and looked at Thor. “We don’t have time for _Sorry!_ , but perhaps some cards?”

“Like a game?” The Asgardian looked quite interested.

“Yes,” she said. “We can play something simple, like ‘Go Fish’.”

“Oh, come on, ‘Go Fish’? _Boring._ ” Stark crossed his arms.

“You got any better idea?” Wanda asked, which was how the lunch devolved into chaotic shouting as each Avenger (save Thor and Steve) tried to offer up an idea.

Steve shot a bemused look at Sam, who was watching the proceedings and trying hard not to laugh. “This is sure fun, huh?”

“Man, don’t even get me _started_ on you,” Sam told him. “I was a fugitive with you after the Accords, I _know_ about poker.”

Steve grinned, perhaps a little wickedly, before trying to school his expression into something neutral. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Man, and the Soldier _warned_ me, too,” Sam lamented. “Kept telling me about goddamned chocolate rations or whatever—Oh, shit, Piper! Don’t use that burner! It’s faulty!” Sam hurried off before Steve regained his breath.

_Chocolate rations._

How would the Soldier know that? Maybe one of the Howlies told reporters or biographers about the time Steve won everyone’s chocolate rations in a game of poker and Steve just hadn’t read that interview yet.

Yeah, that made sense.

Still, Steve couldn’t help but think about the Soldier’s blue-grey eyes, and a feeling of unease settled into his gut.

Eventually, everyone settled on playing Crazy Eights, and Steve watched as Romanov was, unsurprisingly, the winner until Thor started to get the hang of it and began giving her a run for her money. 

By the time they were on their sixth round, Colonel Rhodes entered the room, accompanied by the Soldier, who now wore a dark jacket over his Henley.

“Rhodey!” Stark stood up abruptly.

Colonel Rhodes had been injured sometime in the last thirteen years. Some sort of technology wrapped up and down his legs, and he walked with a stuttering gait, though his back remained straight and his eyes clear and calm.

“Tony,” Colonel Rhodes said warmly, opening his arms up to offer Stark a hug.

“What the hell happened?” Stark hissed, stepping in and wrapping his arms around Colonel Rhodes.

“Got injured in a fight,” Colonel Rhodes replied quietly. “It was bound to happen sometime, Tones.”

Steve watched as Sam’s expression tightened slightly before Sam turned towards the Soldier. “Where?”

“Here’s good,” the Soldier replied.

Sam nodded.

“Are we finally going to get some answers?” Barton asked, leaning back in his chair, quirking an eyebrow.

“Yep,” said Sam. He took a deep breath. “Let’s talk about HYDRA.”

### Bucky

Bucky and Sam waited until everyone was seated. Bucky felt nerves thrumming through his veins, prickling under his skin and causing him to sweat just slightly.

He was very much not looking forward to this conversation.

“Alright,” said Sam. “So. HYDRA. It didn’t go down with the Red Skull. Instead, when the SSR became SHIELD, they recruited several HYDRA scientists to work for them.”

Rogers twitched. “Why would they do that?”

“A lot of agencies did that,” Natasha said. “Operation Paperclip. Anyone with … strategic value.”

“SHIELD recruited Zola,” Sam said, and Bucky watched as Rogers’ lips tightened, the budding fury starting to line his shoulders. “Zola grew HYDRA inside SHIELD itself.”

“Wait, _what?_ ” Barton demanded.

“They expanded,” Sam continued. “Growing into _every_ agency, across the world. They had seventy years to wait, infiltrate, and grow.”

Rogers clenched his fists hard, and the conversation didn’t get easier from there.

Sam laid out everything he, Rogers, and Natasha had been able to gather when they were hunting down HYDRA, back in 2014 and 2015. Sam detailed plans, key players, Project INSIGHT, and Alexander Pierce. Hearing about Pierce brought varying outraged reactions from Rogers, Natasha, Barton, and Stark, though Banner just nodded and said, “Why not?”

By the time Sam wrapped up on the Avengers’ continued job of stomping on any heads which then led into the whole problem with Sokovia, Bucky’s body wanted to vibrate straight to the astral plane. His training, however, allowed him to remain still as Sam finished up and said, “Now I’m going to turn things over to Bu—Soldier. Sorry.”

Bucky shrugged and said, “I was a soldier in World War Two.”

“ _Another_ Cap?” Stark asked.

“No,” said Bucky shortly.

“But you’re old, too!” Stark pressed.

How the hell did anyone deal with this guy. Bucky glared hard, but that didn’t seem to faze Stark in the slightest.

_Ugh._

Whatever. Bucky just needed to get this whole miserable shitshow over with. “I was on a mission behind enemy lines and was separated from my group. I was … injured.” He shrugged his left shoulder. “That’s when the Russians found me…”

The next hour and fifteen minutes was a grueling account of his time with Department X, and the Red Room. His story kept getting interrupted as the past Avengers kept questioning him, kept asking for clarification, or, in Stark and Barton’s case, kept quipping and exclaiming over the more graphic parts of his story.

The current Avengers— _his_ team—remained quietly supportive, occasionally answering a few questions and at other times bringing forward the files and pictures Wanda had snagged from Pepper in Manhattan. He watched Natasha examine each document carefully, but there were no forgeries save for the intentional misdirects, which had been clearly labeled by herself, Rogers, or Sam from back when they’d been hunting Bucky down in 2014.

Bucky watched Rogers read reports of the medical experimentations carefully, watched Thor frown thunderously as he watched a video of the Chair in action, watched Stark pale at the accounts of how his arm was attached, how it hurt him.

“What the shit,” Barton said finally. “How the hell are you even still alive?”

“I suck at dying,” Bucky said wryly.

Rogers looked up and met Bucky’s eyes, expression soft, sincere, and he said, “I’m sorry this happened to you.”

Bucky very deliberately did _not_ react. It was one thing to know Rogers forgave him and stood by him because he wore the face of his dead best friend and another thing to realize that Rogers did that anyway _without_ knowing Bucky’s identity. Rogers was … overwhelming, to say the least.

He settled on sending Rogers a sharp, curt nod. He didn’t know how else to respond.

“So, we’re only at the nineties,” Stark said. He raised an eyebrow. “Wanna tell us what you’ve been up to since, Imperial Droid?”

No, he really didn’t. Bucky let out a calm, measured breath.

“My final mission with the Soviets,” Bucky said. “Before I was sold to the American branch of HYDRA, took place on December 16th, 1991.” He looked at Stark carefully, knew exactly when Stark got it. Knew when he’d understood.

“No,” said Stark, sounding utterly shaken.

“Howard Stark had developed a new super serum based on the last of Captain Rogers’ blood,” Bucky continued. “I was sent to retrieve it.”

“ _No!_ ” Stark stood up, white-faced.

“I was ordered not to leave any witnesses.” Bucky clenched his shaking fist. “I’m sorry, Mr. Stark. I’m so fucking—”

Stark’s expression veered into horrified anger. “You son of a—”

“I killed your parents,” Bucky pushed on. His hands were trembling slightly, and he lay them flat against his thighs. “And I’m sorry.”

That was when Stark leapt to his feet and punched him. Bucky expected nothing else, and he let Stark’s fist collide with his cheekbone.

“STARK!” “TONY!” people exclaimed, jumping to their own feet to restrain Stark, to get between him and Bucky, to shout over Stark’s ranting rambling.

“You sonova—You—You—!” Stark’s wild eyes were on Bucky, dark and furious, the look so familiar to Bucky, who’d seen that exact same look nearly a decade ago and which still haunted his nightmares.

“Come on, Tony,” Rhodey said. “Come _on…_ ”

“He killed, _he killed—_ ”

“I know, Tones. I know.”

“You deserve to die!” Stark shouted as Rhodey ushered him out of the room. “You hear me? _You deserved everything that happened to you!_ ”

Bucky closed his eyes once Stark was out of the room and focused on breathing in and out, slow and even.

“Let’s break for a moment,” Sam suggested. Bucky didn’t open his eyes, but he knew Sam was looking at him. “Half an hour. Soldier, maybe go spar with Wanda, alright?”

Bucky nodded automatically and stood up. Wanda was already at his side, her eyes dark, her expression serious.

“Let’s go, old man,” she murmured, guiding him out into the garden.

### Steve

Steve watched the Soldier and Wanda spar at the tree line’s edge. The two were fast, though the Soldier was faster than Wanda. They ducked and weaved, their bodies twisting through the air as they traversed the open space, each trying to get the upper hand. Wanda’s red power crackled through the air, seemingly channels and directed through the gauntlets on her fingers, and whenever the Soldier’s arm passed through her light, the silver veins seemed to absorb the light and glowed a soft red.

Steve leaned against the Center, watching quietly from the shadows, out of the path of the afternoon sunlight.

There was a lot to think about, a lot to process. From the Soldier being—he had to be around Steve’s age, if he’d fought in World War II. Steve might not be alone, or as alone as he’d thought, and even thinking that sent a thrill of guilt through his gut, because while Steve had been napping in the ice, the Soldier had…

Well. The Soldier had been through hell and back.

(Unbidden, his mind brought up images of the Soldier’s eyes, their grey-blue intensity, so familiar, and yet, _it couldn’t be—_ )

Footsteps approached him, and Steve glanced over to see Addison and Thor heading for him, a welcome distraction from the dread that was settling in his stomach.

“Hey,” Addison greeted him. “How’re you holding up?”

“I’m good,” said Steve automatically. Her eyes narrowed, so he quickly added, “How’s his arm doing that?”

Addison twisted her lips, but allowed the change in conversation. “His arm can absorb energy through it and manipulate and wield it. It’s still in the prototype category, and he can only absorb about 45 IGW at once.”

Steve looked at her blankly, and she grimaced. “Sorry, the scientific community has been scrambling for vocab. Ah, a full blast of Wanda’s power, direct hit, is 100 IGW.”

“Oh,” said Steve intelligently. “And what would that look like?”

“Well, she can lift several tons with that,” said Addison. “And level a twenty-story building. And fly. And … Yeah. It basically means she can manipulate the world around her. With his arm, Bu—Soldier can do it, too, to a much lesser extent.”

“That’s amazing,” said Steve.

Thor nodded. “I have not seen its like, before. Truly, whoever made such an arm must be talented.”

“She is,” said Addison fondly. “Very talented. Probably smarter than anyone else in the world, honestly.”

Steve watched the Soldier use his arm to send a rock flying at Wanda, who was forced to block it, only leaving her legs open for the Soldier to sweep them out from under her.

“Again?” he heard the Soldier say.

Wanda accepted his hand to get to her feet, and they once again fell into ready stances.

“I’m gonna go egg them on,” said Addison. “Bye.”

“Bye,” Steve echoed while Thor said his own farewell. As Addison moved off, Thor remained behind.

“You going to go spar?” Steve asked him, but Thor shook his head.

“No,” the Asgardian said. “How fare you, my friend?”

“I’m good,” Steve said, but Thor gave him a sympathetic look.

“From what I can gather, Howard Stark was a friend of yours,” Thor rumbled. “I know well how it feels to lose a shield mate. I know the grief, the loss.”

Steve let out a small breath and squeezed his eyes shut. Truth was, he’d liked Howard well enough, but he’d only interacted with the man occasionally. Steve and the Commandos were off fighting most of the time while Howard had been back in London, New York, anywhere the SSR needed him most.

He would have counted Howard as an ally, maybe even, tentatively, a friend, but they hadn’t been _close_. Not like he and the Commandos, or Peggy, or … or Bucky.

“Yeah,” he finally said before his silence could stretch on for too long. “It’s … It’s a lot to take in. I knew about the crash. SHIELD debriefed me on it after I woke up. But…”

“Now it is murder, not an accident,” Thor said.

Steve watched the Soldier and Wanda fight, nearly dancing around one another as they moved. The Soldier was clearly the more experienced of the two—He moved smoothly, whip-fast like a snake, elegant and deadly. Steve found himself, yet again, mesmerized by how the Soldier found, the sheer beauty of each precise movement, each block, each strike.

Wanda was good. It was clear she’d been training with the Soldier—he would occasionally shout out a correction to her strikes and blocks—but she lacked the experience the Soldier had.

And little wonder—the Soldier had told them that while he’d often been in the Cryochamber, the years he’d spent awake numbered up to eleven, of which most of that time was spent fighting and killing. Eleven years of just fighting, _only_ fighting—anyone would be a master after that.

Thor clapped Steve on the shoulder. “My friend, there is much in my past that I regret. The way I have treated other races, for one. The way I have viewed fights, questing for honor and glory instead of protecting the innocent. I have not been in the Soldier’s position, but in a way, I have been worse, for I had not been controlled as he has, I had been in control of my own actions as I dealt death and destruction. That, in a way, is the greater crime. For me, in my youth, killing my opponents was sport. For him, it was because he was given no choice and did not know he had a choice. I do not say forgive him—that is not for me to decide, but for you, for Stark. But still I caution to look at this man’s actions when he is free of control, for that is where you will see what is truly his mission and calling.”

Steve nodded automatically, and Thor clapped him on the should once again before wandering off.

He watched Addison call out suggestions, for the Soldier or Wanda, Steve couldn’t say, before he became aware of another presence near him.

“I thought he’d never leave,” Romanov said wryly as she stood next to Steve, cutting up an apple with a knife.

“Is it your turn to babysit me?” he asked. “Because I’m fine.”

“Sure, Steve,” she said, offering him an apple slice.

Steve took it and nibbled at it as he and Romanov watched the fight. Steve found himself itching to join in, to try to fight the Soldier himself. He so rarely had a good challenge, someone who could match him blow for blow. Someone he wasn’t afraid to break with the slightest touch.

“He’s always been a good teacher,” Romanov said.

Steve glanced over at her, surprised. “Yeah?”

She nodded once.

“I don’t remember much,” she told him quietly. “He only came to train us a handful of times.”

Steve nodded, taking that information like the gift it was.

“He seems good with them,” he offered quietly as Wanda tapped out and Addison took her place. Addison wasn’t as skilled at fighting as the Soldier was, so the fight slowed down considerably as the Soldier helped Addison with a few strikes and foot placements.

“He always was,” she said.

They remained silent, slowly sharing the apple as they watched the Soldier fight and fight and fight like he’d been born for nothing else.

Stark wasn’t there, though that didn’t surprise Steve in the slightest. Colonel Rhodes was also absent, but everyone else had returned to the room after the thirty minutes were up.

The Soldier was drenched with sweat, so he sat near the open door. His long hair had been tied back, out of his face, and his blue eyes stared piercingly at them as he continuously scanned the room.

“I was sold to the American branch of HYDRA in 1992,” he began, and they were off, hearing about how Pierce—goddamned _Alexander Pierce_ —was the head of HYDRA, always had been. The Soldier detailed several of his missions, which were more focused on American soil as HYDRA wrapped its tentacles ever tighter around the American government, poised and ready to strike.

“I was brought in to watch the attack on New York,” the Soldier admitted. “I watched the screens, and guarded Pierce as he phoned Fury, guiding Fury into deciding to start Project Insight.”

“What is Project Insight?” Barton asked, leaning forward in his chair.

Project Insight was, to put it shortly, twenty-first century genocide. Steve listened in horror as the Soldier explained.

“Twenty _million_ people,” he said aghast.

The Soldier shrugged. “HYDRA does not care about body counts. They’re Nazis, Captain Rogers.”

Steve knew that. He had seen the camps, had helped liberate one. He’d seen the death, the destruction, the inhumane way the Nazis treated their prisoners.

But still, that old familiar anger, the one that screamed, _How could_ anyone _be okay with this?_ was louder than ever.

Finally, the Soldier recounted Project Insight’s failure and his inability to kill Steve.

“Why couldn’t you?” Romanov asked, her expression mild but her eyes keen, deadly.

The Soldier hesitated. “I … He said something to me.”

“What?” Romanov pressed. “A trigger word, a passcode?”

“No.” The Soldier sounded hoarse. “It was a phrase, one that only he could say, that would help me.”

Steve blinked. “Me?”

The Soldier met his eyes, held them, then lowered the bandana off his face.

Steve felt the air get knocked out of him.

“ _Bucky?_ ”

### Bucky

Bucky couldn’t look away from the wide-eyed look Rogers was giving him. Rogers was looking at him like … like…

Like Bucky was simultaneously a miracle and a tragedy. Like Bucky was all the hope Rogers had ever wanted wrapped up in pain and sorrow. Like he was the best and worst thing Rogers had ever seen.

It was that day on the bridge all over again. Eleven years or six years ago, however he was supposed to count it. Rogers was all shocked and lost, wide-eyed and wild-eyed, and all Bucky could wonder is if it was a lie, if Rogers was just shocked and as soon as he remembered what Bucky had done, what he’d become, Rogers would leave again.

It wouldn’t surprise Bucky.

“Hey,” Bucky said quietly once it was clear Rogers was short-circuiting and didn’t know what else to say.

Rogers kept looking at him, like someone had punched him in the gut, and Bucky honestly didn’t think Rogers realized that he was making a quiet, wounded sort of sound in the back of his throat.

“Wait,” said Barton. “Are you Bucky Barnes? The _Winter Soldier_ is _Bucky Barnes?_ ”

“Yes,” said Bucky. He spread his hands. “Surprise.”

That seemed to jolt Rogers aware enough that he pushed out a, “ _How?_ ”

Bucky tried to keep his face expressionless, because he couldn’t do this again. He paused just long enough to ensure his voice wouldn’t shake. Then he said, “Rumors of my death were … greatly  
exaggerated. Unfortunately.”

“But what _happened?_ ” Rogers pressed. “I— _Assassin?_ For—For _fifty_ years?” Rogers looked down at the table, at all the documents and video evidence of what Bucky had been through, all the pain, the conditioning, the killings, and he made that wounded noise again.

“ _Bucky,_ ” Rogers said, and Bucky almost bent beneath the weight of the pain in Rogers’ voice.

“I know,” he managed to say.

“Steve,” said Sam, forcibly reminding Bucky that, yes, other people were still in the room with them. “Everything we showed you guys still stands right now.”

Rogers looked at him, still wild-eyed. “I don’t care.”

“I know, man. I was there the first time.” Sam’s lips twisted wryly.

“This is fucking crazy,” Barton said plainly.

“I’m aware,” Bucky rasped, dry as dust.

“What _happened_ Buck?” Rogers said, and Bucky averted his eyes from Rogers’ face, not able to stand the pain there.

 _He’s left you once before_ , he reminded himself. _He’ll do it again._

That strengthened his resolve enough to say, “After Azzano. Zola. He injected me with the serum.” Bucky glanced down at his left hand. “Not as good as yours, but helped me survive the fall. Lost my arm. Hit my head hard, couldn’t remember much. Russians found me.” He tapped the nearest file. “I’ve told you the rest.”

“ _Buck,_ ” Rogers said again, and there was _agony_ in his voice.

“What,” he said, exhausted and not caring in the slightest if it bled through his voice. “This is old news, for me.”

“But—” Rogers started.

“Steve,” he said distantly. It was like he was watching himself from an outsider’s perspective; he could see himself speak and blink and look calm, but all his emotions, all his thoughts, they felt so far away… 

_Oh shit,_ he thought. _I’m disassociating._

He needed to get away. Fast. Dealing with his own problems _and_ Steve’s sounded like a really good way to reprise the Helicarrier.

“Look,” Bucky quickly cut across him. “Go process this. Talk to Sam, Natasha, whoever. Process this, then we’ll talk.”

“Go, Barnes,” said Sam, because bless him, of _course_ he picked up on what was going on with Bucky.

“We got this,” Addison said. “C’mon, Bucky.”

She and Piper stood up and headed for the outside, and Bucky followed them.

“Bucky, wait—” Rogers’ chair roughly scraped across the floor in Rogers’ hurry to stand up. (Sam, good friend that he was, stood up, too, offering a paltry barrier between Bucky and Steve.)

But Bucky’s head was a mess. He couldn’t get the pain in Rogers’ eyes, his voice, his entire being out of his head.

 _But he’ll leave_ , he reminded himself. His words felt so very far away, echoing down a great long tunnel. _He’s left you before._

So Bucky followed Addison and Piper outside without looking back.

“Well, that was dramatic,” Addison said, dry and wry, as they walked through the forest.

“It wouldn’t be us if it wasn’t,” Bucky said automatically, distantly.

“Addy,” Piper said quietly.

A moment of silence between the two of them, then Addison said, “Oh, crap. Are you okay, Bucky?”

“No, he isn’t,” said Piper. “Disassociating’s a bitch.”

They kept talking to each other, their voices quiet, giving Bucky time and space to come back to himself. The late afternoon sun felt good on his face, and their voices washed over him soothingly.

They entered the tree line and the sinking afternoon sunlight slowly flickered in and out of view as the trees blotted it out. The smell of pine and wildflowers wafted into his nose, and Bucky sucked in a deep, grounding breath, coming back to himself a little bit.

“—so archaeologists are still looking for evidence of the Great Flood Event that inspired so many cultures to tell myths about a massive flood,” Addison was telling Piper when he tuned back in. “Personally, I think the Black Sea might be likely, but it’s hard to know when that was formed.”

“Oh, hey, back with us?” Piper asked.

Bucky worked his throat for a moment, then said, “I think so.”

“You haven’t had one that bad in a while,” she said sympathetically.

“Well, these are extraordinary times,” he said. He rubbed his flesh hand over his eye. “How long?”

“About twenty minutes,” Addison said.

Bucky blinked around and saw they were in the clearing where he often trained the two women, since it was far enough away from Halfway Hills to not bother anybody.

“Huh,” he said, taking a seat on the ground and resting his back against a tree, his legs stretched out in front of him.

“We’ll just stay here for a bit,” Piper said. “Sam’ll text us when it’s time for the Avengers meeting. Take a nap, or whatever you want.”

A nap sounded good. A nap sounded really good. So Bucky let his eyes fall shut as he drifted away.

When Bucky, Piper, and Addison emerged from the forest, they headed for the Compound for the Avengers meeting. The sun had nearly set and the long shadows cast the community into darkness. The biting chill of the fast-approaching autumn sunk its teeth into Bucky’s exposed skin, and he was glad for his coat.

Bucky was feeling better. His head had cleared slightly with his nap and he was listening to Piper’s ramblings about her favorite Disney villains (a tie, apparently, between Hades, Yzma, and Captain Hook, simply for their style and levels of fun to watch) while Addison occasionally jumped in.

He stuffed his hands in his pockets as they neared the Compound, where Sam and Wanda were waiting outside for them.

“Hey, man,” said Sam, pulling him into a loose hug. “Feeling better?”

“Yeah,” said Bucky, pulling away and rubbing his eyes. “Sorry for just up and leaving.”

Sam quirked an eyebrow. “I didn’t wanna push it.”

Bucky snorted softly and said, “How’s he doing?”

“About as well as could be expected.” Sam sounded tired.

Wanda, too, wrapped him in a hug. “Don’t worry, we settled him down.”

“Thank you,” said Bucky. He paused, then let out a little laugh. “I bet he’s waiting until I go back to pin me down and chat.”

“Probably,” Sam agreed.

Bucky resolved to waiting in the main room for Steve to come to him; he didn’t fancy having that conversation with Steve in, say, his bedroom, which was one of the few safe havens he had.

“Well, let’s get this meeting started,” said Sam, suddenly sounding far more like Captain America than Sam Wilson.

They trooped inside into one of the meeting rooms and spread around the circular table.

“So, A.I.M.,” said Sam. “We know they’re messing around with time. Since May, there’ve been fifteen cases of them bringing people from the past, but none for longer than ten minutes at a time.”

“Where did they get their time machine?” Wanda mused.

“Where indeed,” said Sam grimly. “And how did they bring the Avengers from 2012 here seemingly permanently?”

“Are we sure it was A.I.M. who brought them?” Addison asked.

“Dr. Strange said the readings in the area were consistent with the other cases,” Sam said. “So I think it’s likely that whatever time machine they had, they must have had a break through.”

“Ten minutes each,” said Bucky. “Maybe they set the time travel on a timer and just forgot to set it this time around.”

“What, like time travel is cooking chicken in the microwave?” Piper snorted.

It went on like that for another twenty minutes, and they were still no closer to figuring out what, exactly, A.I.M. was up to.

“We’ll try and see what else Lee and Greyson know,” Sam concluded. “But we gotta find Forson.”

“FRIDAY?” Bucky asked.

“Still trying to track him, Barnes” the AI said.

Sam rubbed his eyes and said, “I’m absolutely beat. We can run ourselves in circles on this later, after a good night’s sleep.”

“Sounds good,” said Addison, sounding just as exhausted.

So they broke for the night, and Bucky could feel his adrenaline spike as he headed back for the Community Center, where he knew Rogers would find him.

### Steve

Later that night, around eleven o’clock, Steve descended the stairs from the second floor of the Center to the bottom floor. He couldn’t sleep—not that he was the only one. Dr. Banner had made himself a cup of tea and had vanished into the night. Steve had no idea where Stark and Colonel Rhodes were, but he’d bet they were up at the Compound. Natasha and Barton spoke quietly to each other on the futon in a language he didn’t know. Both had watched him leave, but neither of them moved to stop or follow him. Only Thor, it seemed, was passed out, but Steve wouldn’t swear on that, either.

So he found himself heading downstairs, drawn by the faint strains of music.

The Community Center was quiet, at night. Only a few lamps cast their golden light at the encroaching darkness, leaving the large room awash with gentle shadows.

Bucky, Addison, and Piper were all downstairs. There was no sign of Sam or Wanda anywhere. Bucky stood behind the bar, making a smoothie, while Piper and Addison were up on the stage, slowly rotating in a dance to music playing quietly from hidden speakers. Bucky glanced up at the stage, a small smile on his face. It was nothing like how he used to smile, and Steve’s whole body ached to see Bucky’s wide, easy-going grin. The Bucky in front of him didn’t seem to smile easily, nor as naturally. He looked tired, wan, and Steve wanted to shout at him, to beg him to _look at him_ , to wrap Bucky up in his arms and never let him go.

But, well. There was a Steve out there right now that had probably already done that. And Steve, the him of the past, _he_ was the one out of place. He was the one who didn’t know Bucky.

He descended the stairs as one song faded out and another one came on, the artificial-sounding notes wafting out through the air.

Bucky shot a look over at Steve’s direction, but didn’t meet his eyes, content instead to looked back down at his smoothie, stabbing into the orange goop with a spatula to break up a few chunks.

Steve crossed the floor, coming to hover on the other side of the bar in front of Bucky.

“ _But I’d follow you to the great unknown, off to a world we call our own,_ ” crooned the female singer. Steve angled his body so he could see Piper and Addison slowly waltz around with each other. Piper didn’t seem to have much of an idea of what she was doing, her steps slightly unsure and she kept giggling whenever she misstepped. Addison, however, was much more confident as she led Piper on. Still, no matter their difference in skill, the two coordinated well, and it was almost like they could read each other’s minds as they swirled across the stage, lost in their own world.

“ _So I risk it all just to be with you … And I risk it all for this life we choose…_ ”

“Couldn’t sleep?” Bucky murmured, and Steve’s eyes snapped back to Bucky.

“Not as such, no,” said Steve, feeling awkward in a way he’d _never_ felt around Bucky, except when he’d first hit puberty and had started … noticing things. “I—Do you want me to go?”

Bucky finally met his eyes, regarding him quietly before shaking his head once. That was another thing about this Bucky—he was quiet, he was still. The Bucky Steve had known would never shut up, cocky smiles and flirty remarks left and right. Fingers tapping out rhythms on his thigh, running his hands across his jaw when Steve knew he _really_ wanted to run them through his hair, but didn’t want to ruin the slick-back doo he maintained meticulously—

Steve’s head was full, so full of cataloguing all the differences between the two of them. It was almost like Bucky had become an entirely different person.

 _He has_ , a voice whispered in his ear. He didn’t know whose it was, anymore, not with Bucky right there in front of him. _Seventy years of torture, ten years out here in the future—what, you think he_ wouldn’t _change?_

“Gonna catch flies, Rogers?” Bucky asked, and Steve jolted. Bucky wasn’t looking at him anymore, focusing instead on pouring the smoothie gunk into two glasses.

“No,” Steve said, ducking his head just slightly.

“ _Hand in my hand and you promised to never let go…_ ”

Bucky nodded and set one of the glasses in front of Steve. Steve didn’t think Bucky had looked him in the eye more than twice this whole time, and it was killing him, not knowing _why_. Why was Bucky treating him like he was some bomb? Like Steve was something fragile, yet terrifying at the same time?

 _Glass tiger_ floated through his head, and Steve didn’t know _why_. Why _Bucky_ , of all people, would look at _Steve_ that way.

“I’m sorry about earlier,” Bucky said, not looking at Steve.

“It’s okay,” Steve said, even though all he’d wanted to do for the past few hours was to go track Bucky down and make _sure_ he was okay.

Bucky’s lips quirked up. “Nice of you to say. But still. I’m sorry I left you hanging.”

Steve nodded automatically and cast about for a topic—again, something he rarely ever had to do, it was Bucky—and inclined his head towards Piper and Addison. “They’re good.”

“They are,” said Bucky, sticking a straw into his glass. “Addison was a huge theater nerd, before the Snap. Wanted to be in the _Wicked_ ensemble, I think. That or some sort of scholar of mythology. Never happened, and now she’s running with us, but she ropes Piper into dancing with her sometimes.”

“ _Never sure, will you catch me if I should fall? Well, it’s all an adventure that comes with a breathtaking view … Walking a tightrope … With you…_ ”

The song faded out, and Addison and Piper adjusted their position on the stage as a new song came on. “ _I still remember, third of December…_ ”

“Do you…” Steve bit his question off, but Bucky’s lips merely tugged upwards into a strange little half-smile.

“Do I still dance?” Bucky finished. “No. Not really. Not unless Addy bullies me into it.”

“Oh,” said Steve. “I … Sorry to hear it.”

Bucky shrugged. “It’s been a long, long time, Steve.” He moved his head, and Steve was struck again by just how _tired_ Bucky looked. Deep shadows under his eyes, lines sunken into his face and carving canyons around his eyes, mouth. “Don’t go looking for your pal in me. I’m not him, haven’t been in years.” Bucky stirred his straw through his smoothie with his left hand, the metal glinting in the low light. Another reminder of all the years that lay between them. “Used to think … God, I used to think, if I could just be like the guy you remember, if I could play the part, maybe you’d…”

He trailed off, and Steve waited for him to finish, but Bucky just took a sip of his smoothie and said, “Doesn’t matter now.”

“ _Why would you ever kiss me? I'm not even half as pretty … You gave her your sweater, it's just polyester … But you like her better … Wish I were Heather…_ ”

“What happened to me?” Steve asked quietly, trying to quash the panic he felt rising in his chest, because the way Bucky was talking about him, the way he wasn’t looking at him, it was almost like … It was almost like Steve wasn’t in his life anymore. Like they weren’t _friends_ anymore. “And don’t lie to me, Buck. Did I die?”

Bucky let out a breath that only shook a little, and it was enough that Steve reached out to rest his hand on Bucky’s, only to stop with his hand in midair, unsure if the touch was welcome. Bucky made no move to close the distance, so Steve let his hand drop awkwardly out of the air.

“No,” Bucky said at last. “No, you didn’t die.”

“But you act as if I had,” Steve pressed. “You won’t look at me, you hid your identity from me for two days, you don’t … you keep _avoiding_ me, Bucky, don’t think I haven’t noticed…”

Steve just didn’t _understand_. Bucky was alive. And if Bucky was alive, and if Steve was also alive, then Steve should be right there, with Bucky. So where was his future self?

“It doesn’t matter,” Bucky said. “You’re just not here right now.”

“But…”

Bucky looked up, looked him dead in the eyes. “No, Steve. It doesn’t matter.”

 _Like hell it doesn’t_ , Steve wanted to say, but he was keenly aware that, in this moment, there’s decades of difference between himself and Bucky now. Years he can’t even begin to bridge just yet.

And the way Bucky was looking at him, the moment their eyes locked, Steve got just a glimpse of what lay behind Bucky’s blank expression. There might be eighty years of torture, separation, and pain between the two, but Steve spent the first twenty-seven years of his life reading every minutiae of Bucky Barnes.

There was pain, in Bucky’s eyes. Grief, pain, and something else, something Steve had never seen before on Bucky, but one he often saw in the mirror, right after a nightmare where he watched every single person he loved wither with age and die as he watched, helpless.

It was—

But Bucky looked away, breaking the moment, and went back to sucking on his smoothie.

Steve cast about for something else to talk about, but couldn’t think of a single damn thing. It was an awkward silence, that descended upon them, and it _shouldn’t_ be, they were _Steve and Bucky_ , things were hardly ever awkward between the two of them, and yet.

“ _But you like her better … Wish I were…_ ”

Steve closed his eyes and tried to think of something, _anything_ , to say.

But he couldn’t think of a thing that wouldn’t remind him of the gap between them, of the years and the pain and the aching, yawning split in their stories.

Not a single damn thing.

### Bucky

Rogers hung out with them until the wee hours of the morning when Bucky finally, firmly, shooed him back to bed.

“I want to stay out here,” Rogers said, stubborn as he always used to be, and Bucky desperately wanted to roll his eyes, but the last hour and a half had been some of the most awkward moments of his entire life since he had to apologize to both Sharon Carter and Natasha for almost killing them in Germany.

“I’m about to go to bed,” Bucky said flatly. “And you’re _not_ coming with me. Go. Get your ass to bed and don’t come out until the sun has been up for at least thirty minutes.” Rogers opened his mouth to protest more, so Bucky dredged up some of the old Bucky and said, “ _Go._ ”

Rogers wilted a little bit at that and dragged his feet as he made his way back upstairs. Bucky never remembered it being that easy, but, well. Perhaps the shock of Bucky being alive had something to do with it. Rogers’ best friend, returned from Hell, what a miracle. Rogers would probably try to wait at least half a day before pissing him off. Try, of course, being the operative word, if he remembered Rogers well enough, though he could be wrong on that account. It wasn’t like Bucky knew Rogers as well as he’d thought.

“I thought he’d never leave,” Piper remarked from the stage.

She and Addison had grown tired of dancing about half-an-hour ago, and though music still played from the speakers, they had turned it down even further and instead sat on the stage, nursing their own smoothies as they whiled away the time talking to one another. Bucky remembered moments like that, where it was just him and St— _Rogers_ talking about nothing and everything.

Teenage Bucky, early-twenties Bucky, he’d been the one to have it good. He’d had Steve, his parents, his sisters, friends and dames to dance with. He’d also had enormous freakouts over the fact that he wanted to neck with Steve all the time, but that had been the biggest personal crisis. He hadn’t been a soldier or a murderer, then. He hadn’t been the Winter Soldier. He hadn’t had to claw up an identity from bleeding, oozing scraps. What that young Bucky had had to do was work long hours, scrape enough money to eat, pay rent, and go out dancing, and spend time with his best friend. It was a hard life, but it was simple, and Bucky hadn’t been as broken as he was now.

In one of their ramshackle apartments, they liked to sit out on the fire escape. Young Bucky would smoke, Steve would draw, and they’d talk in voices just loud enough for Steve to hear as they watched the sun set, the Brooklyn life go by, and the two or three smog-dusted stars to rise. Young Bucky always made sure they went inside before it got too cold, perpetually afraid for Steve’s lungs, but those summer nights, that fire escape, Bucky couldn’t remember a time he’d ever been happier.

He washed up his glass and put it away.

“Goin’ outside,” he said before striding through the kitchen and out the door into the garden.

Outside, the world was dark and still. There were far more stars in the sky than Bucky had ever seen in his youth. They scattered across the busing navy blue-black sky, whites tinted with silvers, pinks, and blues. Bucky even spotted Mars rising, a fiery red dot stark against its dark backdrop. The dusting of the Milky Way banded across the sky, and Bucky felt an old, dusty thrill feebly spark in his mind. 

Young Bucky had loved science fiction, had read it religiously. He’d pictured himself out there, among the stars, seeing new worlds and meeting new peoples.

Well, Bucky had never been to another planet. Not like … like Rogers. He’d never been to space, not like Rogers. He _had_ met aliens, but here, on Earth.

He’d come close to his old self’s dreams, but that’s all they were, old dreams. Bucky shoved his mismatched hands deep into his pockets and stalked over to the tree line, the light from the quartered moon guiding his footsteps around raised beds.

Once he reached an oak tree, a favorite of his, he stretched out between its roots, the grass cushioning his back as he settled into a spot he’d slowly shaped to his form for the last year and a half.

As soon as he’d settled, Bucky focused on his breathing, in and out, nice and easy. His stupid, broken mind was roiling with half-formed thoughts. There was just _so much._

Seeing Steve again, _his Steve_. For that Steve in there, his Bucky had fallen from the train not even a year ago. That Steve was still mourning. He still cared about Bucky, clearly still wanted to be around him.

Maybe Bucky hadn’t been the utter fool he was, hadn’t squandered years of their time running or in Cryo, Steve would still be around today, young and ready to spend the rest of his life in the _present_ , not in the past. Had it been in Cryo, that Steve had decided the present wasn’t worth it? Had all that time in Wakanda—the video chats, the late-night phones calls, the sporadic visits—been nothing more than Steve saying goodbye? Then the Snap happened, and the perfect opportunity dropped into Steve’s lap.

How long ago had his Steve decided he was going to leave Bucky? How much time had Bucky wasted, not realizing that Steve wasn’t permanent, that he _wasn’t_ there to the end of the line? That Steve’s line, at least, ended much more quickly than Bucky’s?

 _Man, don’t think like that_ , Sam had told him once, a few months after Steve had returned from his life with Peggy. He and Sam weren’t _friends_ at that point, not really, but they were definitely getting there. After all, who else was there for them? But Bucky was so, so glad Sam gave him a chance—Bucky didn’t deserve it, not at all, but Sam was one of the best people he’d ever met, and unlike—And Bucky would never take his friendship, his _presence_ , for granted.

His thoughts continued to spiral from one thought to another, dragging his lips down with the weight of them, crushing his lungs with their weight, when a small noise caught Bucky’s attention.

He raised his head, but the figure approaching him is a familiar, welcome one. Bucky dropped his head back and stared up at the leaves once more. He knew that in daylight he would be able to see that many of them were yellowing with oncoming autumn, but for now, they were all dark.

“Good job,” he said as the figure settled down on his right, next to him, perching on two roots that bumped up to form a little seat. “A little louder next time and you’ll be like any other squishy civilian.”

“You think so?” Piper sounded pleased as she leaned back against the trunk.

“Yeah,” he said. “Addy went to bed?”

Piper hummed an ascent and said, “God, my calves are going to _kill_ me tomorrow. Dancing is the _worst._ ”

“It’s how I got my exercise when I was younger.” He smirked. “ _Back in my day,_ we had dance halls.”

She thumped his chest, snorting. “Shuddup, _grandpa._ ”

“Hey, that’s great grandpa to you,” he retorted.

They laugh together for a moment before falling silent.

“Wanna talk yet?” Piper asked in length.

“To you,” Bucky admitted before hastily adding, “Addy’s great, I’m not—”

But Piper snorted. “Relax, Barnes. I know. You know I get it.”

“Yeah.” Bucky exhaled slowly.

“My family still thinks I’m dead,” Piper said reflectively. “What’s left of them. I can’t imagine how I’d react if their past selves just popped outta nowhere and saw what I’ve become.”

Bucky reached out, found her hand, and gave it a gentle squeeze. “They’d be proud, Pip.”

“Maybe.” She didn’t sound convinced. “That what it feels like with you and him?”

Bucky let out a little breath. “Yeah.”

Piper remained silent, urging him on.

Bucky gave it a little bit of thought, collecting his scattered, wild mind and pressing it all down, forcing some kind of coherence into them, some semblance of order.

“You know,” he began slowly. “All my life, I’d’ve taken a bullet for him. I would have died again and again for him. He was my world. And I thought … I thought it was the same for him, you know? The helicarrier. The Accords. Hell, even back in the war. He walked thirty miles behind enemy lines to get me, you know? The history books say he was sanctioned to do that one-man mission—guess it wouldn’t’ve looked good to the higher-ups that their greatest soldier went AWOL, that they couldn’t control him.”

The words abruptly died on his tongue. That was another change, from the old him to the new him. Bucky now had less to say, didn’t know how to charm people, didn’t know how to flirt, how to make people laugh, how to make people happy. No wonder…

He gritted his teeth for a moment, then sighed. Piper squeezed his hand, and Bucky hadn’t realized they hadn’t let go, just yet. But the contact was calming, grounding. He focused on it.

“I really thought he was gonna stick with me forever,” he admitted, and he was keenly aware that it was a childish, stupid thought. Who wanted to stay near him? He was broken, a shattered human pretending to be real. “Turns out, my forever and his didn’t exactly line up.”

Piper’s thumb rubbed soothing circles across his knuckles, and Bucky blew out a breath. “Guess I’m just wondering how long it’ll take for this Steve to wise up the same way.”

“If he doesn’t accept you as you are now,” Piper said quietly. “Then he’s not worth a goddamned _millisecond_ of your time.”

Bucky turned his head toward her, could see her shadowed face in the darkness, her eyes blank and burning all at once, in a look that was as familiar to him as the sight of his left hand.

“And if you were in my position, and Addison in his?” he asked her quietly.

Piper’s lips tugged downwards, but she said, “My answer is unchanged. If people can’t accept that we’ll grow and change, that we will come out as _more_ , not less, that our tastes and interests, our opinions and priorities, change, then they aren’t worth our time.”

Bucky squeezed his eyes shut. “I _miss_ him.”

“I know,” she murmured, old grief in her young voice. “I know.”

Bucky and Piper stayed outside, underneath the tree, until the sun began to rise and washed the sky with strokes of red and gold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhhhh there's so much more angst than I wanted to write, but neither Bucky nor Steve would _shut up_. Thanks for reading!


	3. deep within your bones

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from [here.](https://cardiamachina.co.vu/post/109638885028/i-they-tell-you-never-wear-your-heart-on-your)

### Steve

Bucky seemed determined to avoid Steve as much as possible the next morning, which crushed Steve more than he wished to say.

Particularly because it looked like Bucky hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep, and Steve _really_ wanted to probe, gently, as to why that might be.

Not that Steve had slept particularly well. He’d nabbed two, maybe two and a half hours of sleep and he was feeling every inch of his exhaustion, even with the serum. Still, he’d hoped that Bucky would … notice him? Maybe shoot that little smile he always gave Steve whenever his sisters squabbled. He thought he caught a glimpse of it when Barton and Sam got into who had cooler code names (because apparently, before he’d been Captain America, Sam had been known as the Falcon, which Steve thought was a far less ostentatious and, frankly, cooler name than _Captain America_ ), but when Steve looked closer, Bucky’s expression had smoothed out.

When Steve had entered the kitchen that morning, he’d found Bucky and Piper cooking while music played quietly from an iPod hooked into speakers. Addison and Wanda sat at the counter, each blearily drinking from mugs while Sam and Barton sniped back and forth at each other over a bowl of fruit.

“Morning, Buck,” Steve said, and Bucky merely nodded in response, not even looking up from the eggs he was scrambling.

Disheartened, Steve nevertheless tried again. “Need any help?”

“Nah, we got this,” Bucky said as Piper almost set the sausages on fire. As neither Addison nor Sam seemed alarmed, Steve decided he wouldn’t be, either.

So he slunk over to the couch and sat down, just noticing that Dr. Banner was curled up on the couch, dozing, a mug of tea sitting abandoned on the floor next to him.

Almost unwillingly, Steve’s eyes found their way back to Bucky, who was chuckling over something Piper said, and Steve drank in the sight of Bucky’s softer, more relaxed face. It wasn’t much more relaxed—Steve didn’t even know if Bucky knew _how_ to be relaxed, after all he’d been through—but a strange feeling still settled in his chest at the sight of Bucky’s laughter aimed at someone else’s joke.

God, Bucky was _alive._

 _Bucky was alive_. The thought kept hitting Steve in waves. He’d been mourning, well, _everything_. He’d lost his friends, the world he’d known. He’d lost Bucky, the Commandos, everyone he’d known back in Brooklyn. Peggy was still alive, but she was moving into a home soon, back in 2012. God, she was probably dead in 2025.

He tightened his jaw at the thought, but again, his eyes flitted back to Bucky, who was divvying up the eggs onto plates. His long hair was pulled back into a ponytail and he wore casual jeans, a dark green, long-sleeved top. Light scruff dotted his chin and cheeks, a stark contrast to his carefully clean-shaven looks all throughout their years together, before. He looked good. Really good. And _alive._

That was the part that kept choking Steve up. Bucky was right there. Steve wasn’t alone. Bucky was there, and Bucky had—

Bucky had been through hell.

His brain instinctively shied away from everything he’d learned, but he forced it not to. It was hard, reconciling all that the Winter Soldier had gone through with _Bucky_ going through all that. Steve had seen the photos, the videos. He’d seen several clips of Bucky learning gymnastics, ballet, knife and gun work, various hand-to-hand combat techniques. The videos had all been grainy, from the fifties and sixties, but he’d seen what they did to him whenever he’d misstepped or faltered. There had been so much _blood._

He remembered reports, of how doctors broke every bone in his body to see how long it’d take to heal, only to break the bone again and send the Winter Soldier—no, _Bucky_ —out to fight, to see how long he could ignore the pain.

Everything he’d seen in the Winter Soldier files—from a vivisection to electrocution to the _goddamned Chair_ and the _goddamned Cryochamber_ —that had all happened to Bucky. To the boy who’d stuck up for Steve, who’d helped him learn the different shades of grey Bucky had sworn were different colors. The boy who’d punched Jimmy Cleaver in the gut because he’d called Steve a harp. The teenager who’d helped Steve after his Ma had died, had moved in with Steve even though that meant leaving his own family. The teenager who’d worked two different jobs just to help Steve afford his medication. The man who’d tried to help Steve get dates, who’d encouraged Steve every time Steve expressed his own doubts. The man who Steve had followed into war, and who’d followed him in turn until Steve _failed him._

That was the crux of things, wasn’t it? _Steve_ had failed _Bucky_. He hadn’t looked for Bucky, and so he’d crashed the plane, and while he’d been sleeping for seventy years, Bucky had gone through … Well, Hell on Earth.

The Winter Solider was Bucky Barnes. The assassin, the killer, the mindless machine that seemed to scare Romanov much as she tried to hide it, that was the same guy as the one who’d tried to teach Steve the jitterbug and ended up wheezing on the floor with laughter at Steve’s attempts to imitate Bucky’s smooth movements. Bucky, who’d always buy an extra candy once a month when he let himself go to the store, just so he could give it to someone who looked sad, just to get them to cheer up, to smile.

But the images of Bucky’s liver, held in someone’s gloved hand while Bucky, cut up, eyes open, _awake_ , lay strapped down in the background rose up into the forefront of Steve’s mind. It made Steve want to puke, to punch something, to wrap Bucky up in a hug and _never let him go._

Because it was even harder to think that, even knowing all of what Bucky had been through, all the torture, the brainwashing, _all_ of it, Steve still felt _happy_. Happy that he wasn’t alone in this strange future he didn’t entirely trust, happy that Bucky was alive despite all the pain he’d suffered. Happy that they were alive in this future, facing it together.

And he _shouldn’t_ be this happy. He really shouldn’t, because what Bucky had been through was _horrible_. No one, ever, should have to face what Bucky had faced.

“Good morning!” Thor boomed, Romanov on his heels, interrupting Steve’s tumbling thoughts.

“Mornin’,” Sam said, grinning. “Hope you’re hungry, Thor.”

“I am indeed,” Thor rumbled. “How may I help?”

“Meal’s up,” Bucky said.

“It’s not poisoned, huh?” Barton asked cheerfully.

“Oh, wow,” said Bucky, entirely deadpanned. “Where’ve I heard _that_ one before?”

“Hah!” Piper raised her hand with a mischievous grin on her face. Barton grinned, and they gave each other fistbumps.

“Settle down, now, children.” Sam rolled his eyes.

“So, Sam,” said Romanov as she helped herself to a plate. “How’d you become Captain America?”

Sam shrugged. “Steve passed me the shield. Had to fight the government a bit—they weren’t too thrilled to have an ex-fugitive black man taking over—”

“Seriously?” Steve demanded, unable to help himself from interrupting. “ _Seriously?_ ”

For some reason, his outburst seemed to please Sam. “Yeah, man. What can I say? It’s hard to stamp out institutional and individual racism.”

“It’s the _twenty-first century,_ ” Steve muttered darkly.

Sam grinned. “I know, man, I get it. But hey, I got Barnes’ support—” Bucky shot off a lazy two-fingered salute at Sam, “—and it’s kinda hard to say no to one of the OG Commandos, you know?”

"You're selling yourself short there, Wilson," Bucky said. "You make a great Cap, and you'd do great even without my input."

"Thanks, man," said Sam.

It warmed Steve when he heard that. The Bucky of 2025 seemed so far out of his reach, but understanding of Steve and utterly distant, like he and Steve were strangers. It was nice, to hear more about what good Bucky was going. The choices he was making because he _wanted_ to.

 _Helping Sam be Captain America,_ he thought. _Founding this community for people with nowhere else to go. What else have you been up to, Buck?_

“Where’s Stark?” Romanov asked Sam as people began breaking up across the room to find seats to eat their food.

“Compound,” Sam replied. They were both keeping their voices low, but Steve’s enhanced hearing picked it up easily. He figured Bucky and Thor could also hear them, but the Asgardian gave no indication he was listening in as he shoveled eggs into his mouth.

Once everyone was settled, broken off into their own little groups to chat with one another (Steve had been hoping Bucky would come up to him, start talking, but Bucky was sitting with Sam, Barton, and Addison, talking about weapons). Steve ended up sitting more or less by himself, picking morosely at his plate.

At least, he sat by himself until Romanov sat down in front of him, plate of her own clutched in her hands. “Had a good midnight stroll, Rogers?” she asked.

“It was fine,” he said shortly, putting a forkful of eggs into his mouth.

Her eyes weren’t focused on him, but Steve knew she was cataloguing his every move, every micro-expression.

“How did you sleep?” he asked, polite as he could.

“Just fine,” she said breezily, as if she and Barton hadn’t been taking watches. “So tell me, Rogers, any plans for today?”

Steve’s eyes darted to Bucky and back. Romanov’s expression didn’t change at all.

“Not really,” he settled on.

She nodded and let the conversation drop, and it left Steve feeling prickly, flat-footed. She wanted something from him—information, a favor, _something_ —and he wondered if he could get away with snapping at her to spit it out. He had no time for games, no desire to play into her web.

Sam’s phone beeped, and he pulled it out. After scanning whatever message he got, Sam’s lips tugged down into a frown, his expression tightening into concern and something like resignation.

“What is it?” Bucky asked, instantly alert.

“We got a meeting,” Sam said distractedly. “Official Avengers stuff.” He stood up. “Sorry, guys, we gotta go.”

“Need us?” Wanda asked.

Sam hesitated, his eyes darting to Addison, but he shook his head. “Nah, just Barnes.”

Bucky followed suit, and the two set their empty plates on the table and vanished out the door into the sunlight. Bucky didn’t say goodbye, or even look in Steve’s direction.

Steve finished his eggs, even though he wasn’t hungry at all.

### Bucky

“What do you mean he’s _here?_ ” Bucky hissed as he and Sam hurried over to the Compound.

“I don’t know, man,” Sam muttered. “He was just here two weeks ago.”

“I know,” Bucky muttered. He’d said hi and bye during that visit before heading to another (completely coincidentally timed) meeting with Sam, leaving Piper to gleefully host him. Addison couldn’t stand the sight of him, for some reason, and Wanda refused to see him.

He could see Rogers—Old Rogers?—every few months, but Old Rogers liked to check in once a month, come visit the community, see what everyone was up to. Therefore, he was under the impression that Bucky was often away on missions and supply runs, a notion none of the Avengers wished to dissuade him of.

Speaking of Avengers…

“Do we tell him about the time-displaced Avengers?” he muttered as they left the last few buildings of the community behind. They still had a little under half a mile to walk to the Compound, and Bucky figured they should get a few things straightened between them while they could.

“Aw, shit,” Sam muttered. “What do you think?”

“I think he’d want to talk to them,” Bucky said.

Sam looked over at him. “You don’t want him to?”

Bucky sighed and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Do we want Rogers seeing what he’ll become?”

“He’ll probably figure it out at some point,” Sam said. “Why don’t you want him seeing his future?”

 _Because I think it would hurt him,_ Bucky said, remembering the expression on Rogers’ face as he asked, _“And where am I in this recovery?”_ and _“So, if I’m your friend, why am I not here?”_ It had been a desperate, urgent sort of look, as if what Steve had really been asking was, _You’re here, alive in this future, so where else could I_ possibly _be?_

It hurt, seeing that look on Steve’s face.

“Because I don’t think he’d like it, at that point in his life,” Bucky said at last.

Sam pressed his lips together for a moment as they walked, deep in thought.

Bucky let Sam think, let him mull everything over. He knew they both needed time.

After all, it wasn’t every day that your ex-best friend (old best friend?) time traveled from the past. Whatever happened, Bucky and Sam would be left, dealing with the fall out of losing their best friend, again.

Because Old Rogers _wasn’t_ Bucky’s best friend. Hell, he wasn’t even Bucky’s _friend._ Eighty years was a long time, and Bucky knew Old Rogers about as well as Old Rogers knew him, which was to say, not at all.

“I think the better question is, what right do we have to keep Steve from knowing his future?” Sam asked at last. “Are you keeping them apart for them, or for yourself?”

“Always with the hard questions,” Bucky mumbled.

“You know me,” Sam agreed.

“Both,” Bucky said after he thought about it for a moment. “More for me, though.”

“I’m not saying you’re wrong,” said Sam. “But give me a reason, just one, about why we should keep them apart.”

“A reason for who?” Bucky asked.

Sam bumped their shoulders together. “You said keeping them apart was more for you, so tell me _your_ reasoning.”

Bucky thought about it. The Compound loomed in front of them, a SUV parked in front. Sharon Carter waited by the doors, watching them approach.

“If I see them together,” he said quietly. “That makes it real. And then I’ll lose...”

He wasn’t explaining it well to Sam, but how could he? How could he express that whenever he looked at Rogers, young and healthy, he saw _his_ Steve, the Steve he knew, the Steve he loved? The Steve who would _never_ steal someone’s future away from them, who would never abandon his friends, his _family_. The Steve who stood up for what was right as naturally as he breathed, who could no more walk away from a situation that tell his heart to stop beating, who cared, and cared so _fiercely_ for the people he loved, he’d fight the whole world for them.

“I get it,” Sam said, and warmth flooded Bucky, because who was he kidding? Sam _got it_. Sam had been Rogers’ best friend, too. He’d seen what had made Rogers special. He’d seen the change, after Rogers returned, old and decrepit. He was just as hurt as Bucky.

They shared a smile before turning their attention to Sharon, who strode over to greet them.

“Hi,” she said. “Sorry for the unexpected visit.”

“It’s fine,” Sam assured her. “What’s going on?”

Sharon grimaced. “He has surgery next month. He wanted to stop by now to make up for missing a whole month.”

Her eyes flickered over to Bucky, who remained stoic. Questions pressed against his teeth, questions like, _What kind of surgery? Will he be okay? Who’s the doctor? Will he be okay? How reputable is the hospital? Will he be okay?_

But that wasn’t his place, anymore, if it had ever really been, and Rogers wasn’t his friend anymore, so Bucky bit them back and met her eyes steadily, not betraying a single damn thing.

“That was nice of him,” said Sam. “Wish he’d called, first, though. Barnes and I were getting ready to go off on a mission.”

Sharon let out a soft snort. She didn’t know either of them well, but she understood how strange the whole situation was, how hard it was on Bucky. How could she not? It was strange and hard for her, too.

“Well, we won’t keep you,” Sharon said. “He shouldn’t be here for too long, anyway—he’s got an appointment at five.”

“How’s he doing?” Sam asked as they headed for the doors. “What’s this surgery for?”

“His heart,” she said. Then she grimaced. “He’s … He’s not doing so well. He’s old.”

 _Old._ Bucky’s lips twisted for a moment. Bucky barely looked older than thirty and, by his estimates, he should look closer to forty or fifty. Bucky _felt_ old, he felt ancient. He was, technically, one-hundred and eight, but he always privately thought he was about forty-five. Rogers, though? He was pushing two-hundred, which was bizarre.

Bucky wondered when he’d start aging like Rogers had. He wondered if all the years he’d spent in Cryo counted, if he’d start aging more quickly now that he hadn’t been frozen in a while. He wondered if he’d make it to two-hundred, as well.

They entered the Compound, and Bucky could feel himself tensing. Sharon led them into a small conference room on the first floor, and Bucky got his first look at Old Rogers in a few months. The last time he’d been in a room for an extended period of time with Old Rogers, not just a hi-and-bye, it had been four months earlier, when he hadn’t had enough warning to come up with a good enough excuse to not be there.

He had aged even more, looking far more bent and frail than he had last time. His liver-spotted skin was nearly translucent, and so heavily wrinkled that his jowls and brow drooped down. His blue eyes were cloudy and his thin, wispy hair was carefully combed across his visible scalp.

Old Rogers smiled at the sight of them, but he made no move to stand. He sat in a wheelchair, which was something Bucky remembered from last time. There was a blanket across his lap.

“Bucky,” Old Rogers said, and his voice, once so strong and sure, was quieter, more croaky.

“Steve,” Bucky said.

Old Rogers’ eyes crinkled into a smile. It wasn’t the smile Bucky loved, the one that lit up his whole face, the one that took Bucky’s breath away, the one that made Bucky willing to walk to the ends of the earth for that little punk. It was the smile Steve gave to old acquaintances, like Arnie Roth who’d lived across the hall from them for three years, or old Mrs. MacMillan, who lived on the bottom floor of their crummy apartment building.

Because that’s what Bucky was, now. An old acquaintance. Someone Old Rogers used to know, used to be friends with.

Eighty years was a long time.

“Hey, man,” Sam said, a bit more warmly.

“Sam.” Old Rogers gave Sam that exact same smile. Bucky wondered if Old Rogers knew which smile he was giving them.

Sam and Bucky drew chairs away from the table and dragged them so they were sitting across from Old Rogers. Bucky wanted to be anywhere else, but he forced himself to sit quietly, hands folded in his lap, feet flat on the ground.

Sharon sat next to Old Rogers, and the usual awkward tang filled the air.

Old Rogers, of course, didn’t notice. He never seemed to notice how others felt, these days.

“So, how’ve things been?” Old Rogers asked.

“Good, good,” said Sam. “Uh, we’ve been harvesting a lot of the crops, Wanda’s training is going really well, and we’ve been in a few skirmishes recently.”

“Everyone alright?” Old Rogers asked.

And so the awkward reunion began.

They chatted about training and crops, about Old Rogers’ retirement home, and people he’d met there. They talked about his upcoming surgery and his heart. Old Rogers didn’t seem to mind that neither Bucky nor Sam gave him too much information about their lives, instead seeming content to fill the air with his own words.

Bucky wanted to be anywhere else. Literally, anywhere else. God, this sucked.

“Yeah,” Sharon said, breaking into Bucky’s thoughts. “Uncle Steve got to hang out with his grandkid recently.”

“Martin’s grown so much,” Old Rogers said fondly.

“Oh yeah?” Sam frowned. “I thought your grandkid’s name was Mark.”

Old Rogers blinked, then chuckled. “Sorry, Sam. I seem to be following in Peg’s footsteps, these days.” He gave them a small, sad smile.

And Bucky sucked in a small breath. Sam shot him a look, and Bucky said, “Bathroom.”

He got up and left before anyone could say anything, but he heard Old Rogers say, “He alright?” as he left the room.

Bucky didn’t listen to Sam’s response, trusting him to cover his back as Bucky fled made a strategic retreat.

He found himself heading back outside, heading for a small nook where he was more or less out of sight from passersby.

There he sunk down to the ground and tucked his knees up to his chest, resting his forehead on the tops of his knees, his hands on the ground beside him, and tried very, very hard not to hit anything.

He hated seeing Old Rogers. He hated seeing traces of his old best friend on a stranger’s face. He hated hearing about the life Old Rogers had lived, the one he’d decided to live once he realized he didn’t actually care about Sam, or Wanda, or Natasha’s legacy, or … or, well, _Bucky_. And he hated the fact that the very idea that Old Rogers could be losing his memory, making Bucky the _very last person on Earth_ to remember their past… 

It made Bucky want to punch something, hard. Well, actually, it made Bucky want to punch _Steve_ really hard, but that would probably break old, frail bones these days… 

“Barnes?”

Bucky looked up to see Rhodes standing a little ways away, looking at him with raised eyebrows.

“Colonel Rhodes,” Bucky managed, sitting up straighter.

Rhodes quirked an eyebrow. “Any particular reason you’re hiding in the shrubs?”

Bucky looked around him, then shrugged. “Needed some air.”

“I hear that,” Rhodes said quietly. “Steve’s here?”

Bucky gave a small, tight nod, and managed to say, “I’m sure he’d love to say hi, if you wanted to poke your head in. Conference room three.”

Rhodes shook his head. “I gotta get back to Tony. I mean, Bruce is there, but…”

Bucky felt a wave of nausea sweep through his body, and he forced his voice to remain steady as he asked, “How is he?”

Rhodes closed his eyes for a moment. “He’s hanging in there.”

Guilt gnawed at Bucky. “Oh.”

“Hey, he’s got me and Bruce to lean on,” said Rhodes, attempting a smile. “And I just finished calling Pepper, to fill her in. I think she needs a bit of time, but she might visit. That’d cheer him up a bit, too.”

“That’s a good idea,” Bucky said.

Rhodes nodded and said, “I don’t know how long Tony needs, but Barnes—It wasn’t your fault.”

Bucky quirked his eyebrow. “Sure.”

Rhodes rolled his eyes. “Guilt-ridden, the both of you. Give Tony time, okay?”

“All the time he needs,” Bucky promised. _Least I could do,_ he didn’t say, thinking about a version of Stark who died on the battlefield, who’d lived through five years Bucky had missed in the blink of an eye.

They had never gotten to talk, never gotten closure. There was much Bucky had wanted to say to Stark, much he’d wanted to apologize for. He hadn’t wanted to die, nor had he expected forgiveness, but he had wanted … Well, he had wanted to let Stark know that he was sorry. Sorry he hadn’t been stronger, sorry he hadn’t been able to stop himself. Sorry for the pain he’d brought into Stark’s life. Bucky’s own parents were long gone, but it had been a natural death for the both of them. He could barely imagine how _he’d_ react if he’d come face-to-face with their killer.

Rhodes nodded and said, “I should get back. Barnes—” He hesitated, then sighed. “Look, both Tony and I had known you’d been tortured, but I don’t think either of us looked into it at all beyond the Chair, the Cryo, and your arm. I think Tony … The other Tony…” He huffed and smiled with self-deprecation. “I think he died not knowing what you’d been through, what you’d _really_ been through. But this Tony got the full scoop, all the evidence he could ever want. I think he’s struggling to reconcile the fact that you killed a lot of people, but had no agency. It’s hard, for Tony to wrap his head around not being able to _think_ , you know? Tony’s always known his mind is his greatest gift, and everyone else in the world knows it, too. So having someone’s mind taken away from them … He’s trying to comprehend that at the moment.”

“Does he know…” Bucky’s throat closed, so he gestured to his face.

“That you’re Bucky Barnes?” Rhodes finished. “Yeah, I filled him in. Hope you don’t mind.”

Bucky shook his head.

“Great.” Rhodes scrubbed his face with a rough hand. “I’ll be getting back, then. I know this Tony isn’t the one you wanted to talk to, but this might be an opportunity for both of you, for closure, if you give him enough time.”

“Okay,” Bucky said.

Rhodes smiled sadly, nodded, then limped his way back into the Compound.

Bucky stayed outside for several more minutes, trying very, very hard not to think of anything but his own slow, steady breaths, before going back inside to face Old Rogers once more so that Sam and Sharon didn’t have to deal with him alone.

### Steve

Piper set Steve to work in the gardens weeding while she and Addison picked carrots in another bed, “For supper tonight,” Piper had told him cheerfully.

The others had all vanished elsewhere. Last he’d heard before following Piper and Addison outside was that Thor and Clint wanted to go talk to Dunphy, and Romanov and Wanda were in deep discussion about the Accords.

Stark and Colonel Rhodes hadn’t reappeared, and Dr. Banner had vanished off to the Compound not long after breakfast. Steve was beginning to wonder if he should go find Stark, talk to him. He wasn’t close to the man, not by any means, but he could hardly imagine how Stark must be feeling right now.

Piper and Addison were chatting away about something—a musical, Steve thought it was—and steadily filling up a basket with carrots.

Steve, meanwhile, tried not to eavesdrop and focus on uprooting weeds from the soil. He was a Brooklyn boy through-and-through—he didn’t think he’d ever gardened before in his life, and he found it rather soothing. Outside, in the sunlight, his fingers in the cool dirt, surrounded by green growing things. Perhaps he’d get a small box garden for his apartment’s balcony, when he got back to 2012. Perhaps—well, he’d rescue Bucky, of course, but perhaps he and Bucky could grow things together. Flowers, for all the color. Things that would make Bucky smile.

Steve missed Bucky’s smile.

“Hey there, Farmer Rogers,” said a voice behind him. Steve glanced over his shoulder to see Romanov standing at the edge of the bed, an eyebrow raised.

“Romanov,” Steve greeted her. “Come to help?”

Romanov’s lips quirked in amusement as she looked at the dirt, then pointedly tapped her immaculate nails against her thigh.

“Think I’ll just enjoy the view,” she said dryly. “But thanks anyway, Rogers.”

“Steve.”

Another quirk of the lips. “Then call me Natasha.”

Steve offered his own smile, a wan little thing, and went back to weeding. Natasha sat down on the edge of the bed and watched him work for a while.

She wanted something, Steve knew. Natasha was one of the best spies in the world, of course she wanted something, but Steve felt relaxed enough to let her ask in her own time.

Natasha didn’t disappoint—after about ten minutes, she spoke up. “So, time travel, huh?”

Steve snorted. “Not the most bizarre thing that’s happened to me lately, I gotta say.”

He surprised her, because for a moment, her eyes twinkled with amusement. Then she continued, “Yeah, the aliens thing is quite the contender, huh?”

 _Spy games,_ Steve thought wearily. Peggy had had the time for them. Bucky, too, for the special missions. Not Steve, though. Subtlety had never been his strong suit.

“What do you want to ask, Natasha?” he asked. “Just ask.”

Again, a pause, an assessment. Then, abruptly, Natasha came to a decision and asked, “Barnes. What was he like?”

“He was my friend,” Steve said automatically. It’s rote, by now. He’s seen more historians over the last six months than he’s seen of his SHIELD-assigned therapist. None of the historians got the true story from Steve, who didn’t particularly appreciate that his entire life and everyone in it had been reduced to props for Captain America to step up into the spotlight.

Bucky and his Ma, those were the two he skated around the truth most often. The Commandos, Peggy, Howards, the Barneses, they all lived on. They could speak—and had spoken—for themselves. But the two most important people in his life had died, and Steve hadn’t wanted to bare his soul for the incurious masses.

 _Dead,_ he thought, and then stopped short.

“Is,” he amended. “He _is_ my best friend.”

“Right,” said Natasha, who was very much _not_ a historian and probably cared less about Captain America than Bucky had. “And?”

“He was great,” Steve offered haltingly.

Natasha sighed. “Rogers. Steve. I’m cognizant that he’s your best friend. But he’s also the Winter Soldier, and I need to know about the guy he used to be.”

This was a gift from Natasha, in her own way, Steve realized. Her bluntness, letting him know where she stood, what she wanted. She was trying, and Steve could barely imagine how difficult that was for her. It made him want to put in a little effort.

He didn’t have to tell her the whole truth, but he was under no illusion that to free Bucky back in 2012, to rescue him from HYDRA, he would need her help.

He needed her—and so he would have to give up a little bit of himself, bare his soul slightly in the hopes that she would return that trust, even if just slightly.

“He was … Everyone loved him,” Steve said. “He was the kinda guy that knew everyone and everyone knew and liked him. He could charm anyone, if he set his mind to it. He liked making people happy. He was thoughtful and crude, he loved dancing, he was sharp as a whip, probably could have been anything if he’d set his mind to it. He wanted to be an engineer, but I always thought he wouldn’t have made a half-bad Sci-Fi writer, imagination like his. He loved his family something fierce.” Steve shrugged helplessly. “He was—is—the best person I’ve ever known.”

Natasha’s face gave nothing away as she said, “He’s a killer.”

“So am I,” said Steve. “All of the Avengers are. Bucky was a killer before he fell, before … Well. He killed. That doesn’t mean he’s not a good person anyway.”

She stared at him, inscrutable, and Steve shifted, wondering if he’d given too much away. It’s hard, in this new century, to know when to draw the line between _two friends_ and _two queers._ Probably, Natasha wouldn’t care that Steve’s feelings for Bucky were a little queer, but still. That’s something Steve never talked about, and if he did ever talk about it, it oughta be between him and Bucky, not him and a government spy.

“You know,” said Natasha, her face and tone still giving nothing away. “You really sounded like you were from New York, just then.”

Steve flushed, but Natasha was already moving away, leaving Steve to his weeding.

He did so with a renewed vigor, quite glad that Peggy and Natasha had never gotten to meet when they were both in their prime. _That_ would have been quite the doozy to witness.

He didn’t know if Natasha had gotten what she wanted out of him, what she’s learned from him, but he hoped it was something good, something in Bucky’s favor.

Another hour or so passed before Piper and Addison called it quits, both their baskets filled with vegetables like carrots, broccoli, peas and a few green onions.

Steve, who’d managed to weed two garden beds and had just started with the third, helped them haul the vegetables up the hill to the second floor of the Center.

“Most of these are going to the main kitchens,” Addison told them as they climbed up. “But Piper wants to make some soup she doesn’t have to share.”

“All my leftovers get eaten!” Piper said. “It’s annoying as hell!”

“It’s ‘cause you're a better cook than most of the people here,” Addison told her, and Piper rolled her eyes, but still smiled at Addison.

Steve found himself grinning as they crested the hill. The entire community lay sprawled at his feet, the Compound in the distance. The lake glittered in the noonday sun, and there was a lone car on the road driving away from the Compound. The road curved away from the community, disappearing off into the woods and back to civilization. Steve idly wondered what New York City looked like, in 2025. What Brooklyn looked like. He couldn’t help but think about some post-apocalyptic wasteland he’d seen in a few movies he’d watched in the last few months and hoped, desperately, that the City was mostly unchanged.

“Oh hey, they should be done,” said Addison, shading her eyes as she looked over at the Compound.

“How do you know?” Steve asked, following her gaze.

“The old man’s leaving,” said Piper, an edge to her voice that Steve didn’t understand.

“What old man?” Steve asked, staring at her in confusion. But Piper simply looked straight ahead as the car passed near the community. Steve followed her gaze. Though it was about a quarter of a mile away, Steve had _excellent_ vision these days, and the windows were down. He spied a blonde woman driving, her expression pinched, and an old man in the backseat, staring out of the window, all grey-haired and dull blue-eyed. Something about the old man looked familiar, but he was too far away to make out what, exactly, it was.

He glanced over at Piper, who was looking at him with a strange, almost angry expression, but before he could dwell on any of it for too long, Addison was hustling them both back into the Center, chattering about this and that. Piper dove into the conversation, her strange expression gone like morning mist, leaving Steve to wonder if he’d imagined it.

He didn’t bring it up. Instead, Steve let the noise wash over him as he helped them unload some of the harvest off into the small kitchen in the upstairs living space before hauling the rest of it downstairs.

They found Wanda reading downstairs, reading a book.

“Hey, Wands,” said Piper cheerfully.

“Hello.” Wanda turned a page. “Have you ever read _The Hobbit_ , Captain?”

“Steve,” said Steve. “And yeah, once, back when it came out. Bucky read it to me when I was sick.”

“Oh?” She offered him a playful smile. “What was your favorite part? I quite enjoyed the trolls, myself.”

It had been so long since Bucky had read it to him, Steve found himself scrambling to remember what all had happened in the book.

“Uh,” he said. “The barrel ride.”

Wanda grinned, and then set the book aside to help them unpack the baskets.  
Once that chore was done, Steve found himself wishing to go for a walk, to stretch his legs.

“Go for it,” said Piper. “There’s a lot of great paths through the woods. See some birds or whatever.”

Steve decided he might just do that and turned to go and head outside once again.

“Steve.” He turned to see that Wanda had followed him, Piper and Addison still chattering away in the background.

“Yeah?” he asked.

Wanda studied him for a moment, then said, “After meetings like the one he just had, Bucky usually goes down to the lake.”

Steve nodded once. “Thank you,” he told her before heading off.

Steve did indeed find Bucky down at the lake. It was in the same spot as before, sitting on a large, flat rock whose edge ran into the lake but was large enough that the rest of it was dry as bone under the bright sun.

“Hey, Buck,” said Steve.

Bucky didn’t start; he’d probably heard Steve coming ages ago. Instead he took his time looking over at Steve.

He looked far more tired and unhappy than he had this morning. His mouth was pressed into a tight light, and there was something hard and exhausted about his eyes.

“Hey, Steve,” Bucky said at last.

Steve gestured to the rock. “Mind if I sit?”

Bucky shook his head, so Steve moved over to sit next to him, to look out at the water with him.

“Meeting was rough, huh?” he asked quietly after a few moments of silence.

Bucky shrugged. Steve was sitting on his right, so the metal arm wasn’t as visible. If Steve wanted to, he could pretend that nothing had changed between them, that Bucky was still two-armed and hadn’t been through seven decades of hell and that Steve was still small and sickly, but happier.

Steve didn’t let himself imagine that, though. It seemed disrespectful, to all that Bucky had been through.

“You could say that,” Bucky said before Steve’s thoughts could continue to spiral on. “It was just … A lot of emotion, all in one place. I’m … not too good with dealing with emotions, these days.” His lips quirked into a smile.

“Well, we all have our failings,” said Steve, and immediately began worrying that he’d offended Bucky, but Bucky snorted.

“Failings, huh? What’re yours, then?”

“Pretty sure you know mine, pal,” said Steve.

Bucky bobbed his head. “Incurable stupidity, a total lack of self-preservation, obstinance out the wah-zoo—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Steve groused. “List all my shortcomings, why don’t’cha?”

“You got anywhere to be tonight?” Bucky asked dryly.

“You jerk,” Steve laughed, bumping their shoulders together. He immediately missed the contact, as soon as he pulled away again.

“That’s me.” If Bucky missed Steve’s warmth, he didn’t let on. “Bona fide jerk, at your service.”

Steve smiled, and it was one of the most relaxed, genuine smiles he’d given since waking up six months ago. “What’s that make me, then?”

“Oh, you’re still absolutely a punk,” Bucky assured him. A shadow of sadness crossed over his expression, one Steve couldn’t parse, understand. “Don’t think that’ll ever change.”

Just like that, the light-hearted atmosphere evaporated, leaving Steve yearning for its return. For a moment there, just for one glorious moment, he’d almost had Bucky back.

But he didn’t know how to do that. He’d never had Bucky’s gift of conversation, of nimble manipulation of people’s moods. They’d balanced each other so well, with Steve’s rousing speeches and Bucky’s work to boost morale in between, and now that he didn’t have Bucky helping him, Steve felt adrift.

So he did what he really wanted to do, in that moment. Steve bridged the gap between them and pressed their shoulders together, reveling in the warmth, the closeness. He heard Bucky let out a small, nearly silent sigh, and Steve’s heart ached for him, for his best friend, for one of the only people who ever saw _him_ who was still alive, for the person he—well.

It was nice, feeling the solid muscle of Bucky’s shoulder against his own. Warmth leaked out from under Bucky’s long-sleeved shirt, soaking into Steve’s skin, and the smell of Bucky—some sort of fruity shampoo, gun oil, and something uniquely _him_ that hadn’t changed in all the years of Bucky’s life—soaked into Steve’s nostrils. It was mostly new, but Steve still thought of _home,_ something he hadn’t thought since before the War, since before Bucky was drafted and their lives were thrown to chaos.

But the moment didn’t last long; too soon, Bucky quite firmly moved them apart again, sitting a respectable distance away, and Steve’s heart nearly broke again all over.

“Buck,” he said.

Bucky shook his head. “Don’t, Steve,” he said. “Just don’t.”

And Steve, God help him, didn’t.

He didn’t know how to bridge that gap Bucky was putting between them. He didn’t understand why it was there.

But he respected it. What else could he do?

So they sat in silence like strangers, and Steve wondered if any of this was worth it. When he went back to 2012 and rescued Bucky from HYDRA—because he wasn’t about to do anything else, of course not—would the difference between them just be too great to bear?

Was this what they were cursed to be? Strangers wearing their old best friend’s faces?

Steve didn’t think he could bear that.

### Bucky

Bucky, Sam, Wanda, Addison, and Piper were crowded in Sam’s room later that night for the very important task of watching _The Decoy Bride,_ a movie Piper seemed particularly excited to make everyone else see.

“It’s about two idiots who keep fighting and fall in love,” she told them before it started. “And it’s so _stupid,_ I love it.”

“On par for our usual movie nights, I see,” said Bucky dryly, and Piper thwacked him, rolling her eyes.

Bucky grinned. He so often felt out of place in the twenty-first century, out of place among other people. But here, with the four people who, through chance or choice, stuck with him and got to know him, he felt almost normal, almost human again.

Emotions still didn’t come easily to Bucky anymore—expressing them, anyhow. His face seemed perpetually grumpy no matter his mood, and laughing or smiling still did not feel natural.

But here, with his friends, the smiles came easier, the laughter faint but still present.

It was good, to have friends.

“Okay, okay, okay,” said Sam, pausing the movie about half an hour in. “We can’t continue without popcorn, or snacks, or _something._ I’m dying here.”

“Aww, Sam,” said Bucky, smirking. “We working you too hard?”

“Shut your mouth, Barnes,” Sam said, smacking Bucky’s leg out of the way as he headed for the door.

“I want candy!” Bucky shouted after him.

Sam flipped him off while Piper and Wanda shouted their own requests. Addison got up and followed Sam out, likely to help him haul the food, because she was nice like that, unlike the rest of them assholes.

“Hah,” said Piper. “No work, all the reward.”

“If Sam hears you say that…” Wanda said dryly.

Piper pointed a finger at her. “Don’t you freaking tell, Wands, or I’ll tell Sam what happened to his shield that one time with the tree.”

Bucky perked up. “Ooh, what happened?”

“ _Pip,_ ” Wanda warned. “No telling!”

Piper smiled smugly, but Wanda shook her head, abruptly sober. It made Bucky’s heart sink, and he braced himself for whatever question she had.

Wanda didn’t disappoint. “How was Steve?” she asked softly.

Even though Sam’s room was sound-proof—something Sam had insisted on, saying, “I know how loud y’all can be, I want to _sleep_ through the night”—Bucky still felt nervous that the time-displaced Avengers could still hear them.

 _Rational,_ he told himself as he forced himself to relax. “I take it you don’t mean the one sleeping in the armchair outside.”

She gave him a _look,_ and Bucky shrugged. “Had to ask. He’s fine. He’s going to have heart surgery next month.”

“That’s rough, dude,” Piper told him, her expression sympathetic.

“ _I’m_ not the one having surgery,” said Bucky. “He just wanted to visit, say hi.”

“Still,” said Wanda.

Bucky shrugged, wishing they could just forget about Old Rogers and move _on._ “I’m sure he’ll be fine, Wanda. He’s tough.”

Wanda bit her lip, and Bucky reminded himself that he wasn’t the only one who lost Rogers to the past. Sam lost his best friend. Wanda, the closest thing she had to a mentor and a family figure.

Old Rogers had left his mark on all of them when he left for the past and a woman he’d lain to rest almost a decade before he married her. He’d affected them all, not just Bucky.

“He’ll be fine, Wands,” he said, much softer, more sincere, and Wanda let out a little breath, nodding her head slightly.

“Still no sign of Stark?” Piper asked.

“No,” said Bucky. “But then again, he might still be in the homicidal stage of his rage, and while I don’t blame him, I’m not wild at the thought of dying at the moment.”

“It’ll take Tony some time,” Wanda said, twisting her fingers together, clearly still preoccupied with Old Rogers’ health.

“I know,” said Bucky. He forced his tone lighter. “Gee, here’re all these hard questions. Thought we were supposed to be relaxing tonight, huh?”

Wanda bit her lip. “I didn’t know when to bring it up.”

“I get it,” he said. “I do.”

Sam and Addison slipped back inside the room then, their arms laden with sweets and other snacks.

“Man,” said Sam once his door was closed. “Nat tracked us the _entire time._ I forgot how nerve-wracking she was.”

“Aww,” said Piper, a smirk curling her lips. “Is Sammy scared of his younger best friend?”

“Man, shut up.” Sam rolled his eyes and chucked a packet of apple crisps at Piper’s face, who laughed as they hit her cheek.

“Thanks,” she said happily, opening the bag.

Sam and Addison distributed all the snacks before settling down and enjoying the movie.

The movie _was_ an entertaining, if somewhat nonsensical and unrealistic, movie. Bucky heckled the leads alongside Piper while Wanda watched the story avidly. Sam zoned out on his phone partway through while Addison snuggled up to Piper’s side, grinning.

It was a good night, all in all. Later, when Wanda was passed out on Sam’s beanbag and Piper and Addison were curled up on some blankets on the floor, it was just Sam and Bucky awake, sitting on his bed, staring at the TV screen on the wall across from them, which showed a muted, dimmed documentary.

“So,” said Sam quietly. “How’re you holding up?”

Bucky shrugged. “Fine.”

Sam gave him A Look, and Bucky rolled his eyes. “Seriously, Sam, I’m okay. As okay as I have been in the last year.”

“I just worry about you,” said Sam.

Bucky scoffed. “ _Me?_ I worry about _you._ ”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Man, shut the hell up. I’m good. It’s weird, seeing him younger, but I’m managing.”

“Good,” said Bucky.

Sam heaved a sigh. “You know, you’re way more open about your emotions than Steve ever was, but I swear, you got an extra helping of asshole.”

“That’s me,” said Bucky, cheerful. “Now, what did you want to _really_ talk about, huh?”

Sam thunked his head back against the wall and looked up at the ceiling. So, it was a conversation where they didn’t look at each other and tried to be Manly Men. Bucky could deal with that. He stared at the TV screen and watched some dopey-looking bird waddle through a puddle.

“I gotta drop off Rhodey in New York City,” said Sam. “Probably talk to Pepper in person, she’s sent me a worried text.”

“Okay,” said Bucky slowly.

“There’s also the matter of the Superhero Laws,” Sam continued.

Bucky shot him a look out of the corner of his eye. “What’s that got to do with me?”

“You got sway over people these days, Barnes,” Sam said. “You could come with me.”

Bucky blinked. “Go with you, huh?”

“Think about it,” said Sam. “No Steve, old or young. Give Stark a couple extra days to calm down, maybe sic Natasha or Steve on him, get them to vouch for you—” ( _“Natasha?”_ Bucky scoffed.) “—You get to clear your head, get away for a little bit. It’s a win-win.”

Bucky sighed. “Leaving them to deal with the Avengers?” He jerked his chin at Wanda, Addison, and Piper.

“They can handle it,” Sam said. “It’s just for two and a half days.”

“That’s a lot to ask of them,” said Bucky.

“Barnes.” Sam’s tone made Bucky look over and lock eyes. “I’m worried about you, man. The way you act around Steve. The way you had to bow out of our earlier meeting. Seeing Stark again … There’s no shame in having a little get-away, clear your head. It’ll do you good.”

Bucky looked away. It probably _would_ do Bucky good, but he couldn’t deny that as much as he wanted to forget that Steve existed, sometimes, he still couldn’t quite bring himself to stay away for too long. Even the two-and-some day excursion sounded like an awful lot of time to be away from Steve’s stupid magnetic presence.

But that was the crux of it, wasn’t it? Steve—the young Steve—, his time here was limited. He’d go back to 2012, start a new timeline that would eventually spin off into its own universe, and Bucky would still be here with an old man who used to be his best friend and the fragile tatters he was laboriously stitching into a new life.

No matter how much or little time he spent with Steve, the end result was still the same; Steve would leave. The young Steve would leave his Bucky behind, like Bucky’s Steve had already done. Steve would never stay, not for Bucky, not for their family, not for anything.

So three days less spent with Steve? That was nothing compared to the decades he had ahead of him.

Bucky could survive without Steve. He would survive without Steve. He may have been blindsided by a Steve from 2012 showing up, but he could take this opportunity Sam was offering him to clear his head, to figure out how he wanted to deal with this mess of a situation. Steve, Stark, the entirety of the Avengers…

Yeah, he could use that time.

“Sure, Sam,” said Bucky. “I’ll go with you.”

### Steve

“You’re leaving?” Steve asked, dismayed.

“Just for today and most of tomorrow,” Bucky said, not looking at Steve as he fixed up his own breakfast, consisting of a smoothie and toast.

They were in the kitchen/dining room area in the Community Center. Steve could hear people talking in the other room—many of the Community’s residents had breakfast together at the tables on the other side of the wall.

Steve, who’d just begun tucking into his meal of eggs and bacon, had listened with increasing dismay as Sam outlined his plan, which involved returning Colonel Rhodes to Manhattan, where he was needed to supervise the Superhero Laws, and also involved _taking Bucky with._

Steve got that Bucky was Sam’s second, but why did Bucky have to leave?

“Two days,” Steve repeated numbly.

“Yeah, man,” said Sam, looking sympathetic. “It’s kinda good to have backup, over there.”

Steve nodded. He felt disconnected from his body, and from the look Natasha shot him, he was doing a poor job hiding it.

“Well,” Thor rumbled from the corner where he was attacking a mound of bacon. “I wish you the best in this journey, Captain!”

“Thanks, Thor,” said Sam.

Sam continued talking, telling everyone what he and Bucky were going to do downstate, and Steve tried to pay attention, tried to follow along, but his thoughts were an utter whirlwind, and he wasn’t sure how well he actually absorbed everything Sam was talking about.

“When are you leaving?” Natasha asked.

“Soon as breakfast is over,” Sam said. “Barnes and I need to go pick up Rhodes from the Compound, then we’re outta here.”

Steve mechanically ate his food, ignoring how Bucky didn’t sit next to him, and instead sat next to Sam, engaging him in a quiet conversation Steve wanted desperately to listen in to, but forced himself instead to tune the words out. If Bucky didn’t want him to hear, he’d respect that.

Even if he desperately wanted to listen in.

Instead he ate his eggs and munched on his bacon and tried to ignore the looks Natasha and Addison were shooting him.

After breakfast, everyone broke up, going their separate ways for the morning. He heard something about Piper and Addison going to visit Gloria, Wanda and Natasha heading out to check in with Dunphy, and Barton vanishing somewhere. Thor, Steve didn’t even see leave. For such a large man, the Asgardian sure could move quietly.

That just left Steve, Bucky, and Sam.

Steve tried not to look as disheartened as he felt, but he must have failed spectacularly, because Sam sighed and said, “I’ll go pick up Rhodes.” He looked between Steve and Bucky. “Meet us by the road, Barnes.”

“You got it,” said Bucky, nodding, his gaze not leaving Steve’s face. Steve, too, didn’t break the stare.

Sam headed off, and that just left Steve and Bucky alone.

Steve searched Bucky’s face, looking for a hint of what his oldest friend was feeling. There was a time when he could look at Buck and know exactly what the other man was thinking, but those days had, apparently, long since passed, and Bucky’s face was now closed off, impenetrable.

“Buck—” he started.

“Come on, Steve,” interrupted Bucky, standing up, turning, and heading for the stairs. “I gotta pack. We can talk in my room.”

Steve followed Bucky upstairs, only a handful of steps behind him. Bucky took them through the small upstairs apartment to his bedroom door and pushed it open, not looking back at Steve as he entered.

Steve slowly stepped in after him and looked around.

Bucky’s room was small and mostly empty. Aside from a neatly-made bed, a dresser, a nightstand, and a small one-person writing desk, there was no other furniture. However, Steve could see all the little touches that made it _Bucky’s_ room. There were several books stacked on the nightstand and the desk, mostly Sci-fi, but with a few histories. There was a small wooden carving of a wolf on top of the dresser next to a hairbrush and a pile of hair ties. An oversized hoodie, blue and well-worn, lay draped over the desk’s chair. And across the walls…

Above the bed, where Bucky would be able to see them if he lay down, were several photographs. Steve studied them, seeing images of Bucky and Piper making smoothies, of Bucky and Sam practicing with the shield, of Bucky and Wanda trying to bake something—they were both covered in flour and clearly caught in the middle of laughing. There was a photo of Bucky and Addison reading outside, leaning against a tree in companionable silence. Then there were three group shots. The first two pictures of the 2025 Avengers were more candid shots. The first was of five eating at some sort of picnic at twilight, the low light belied by the warm golden glow of lamplight. Bucky was in the middle of laughing, his face scrunched up while Piper giggled into his shoulder. The second was of all of them in the winter time, throwing snowballs. The shot was fuzzy, like the photographer was in motion, but Steve could see Bucky and Wanda pelting Sam and Addison with snowballs while Piper gleefully aimed for them all from behind a tree.

He could help but smile at those, at that evidence that Bucky was happy, here in this strange future.

Then he turned his attention to the last photo. It was clearly a staged group photo, everyone dressed up in all their gear. Steve’s eyes lingered for a moment on Sam’s version of the Captain America uniform, with its muted colors and patriotic touches, then switched over to Bucky, who was unsmiling in his all-black get-up. There was something somber about the picture, something sorrowful, and Steve wasn’t sure what to make of it.

“You like them?” Bucky asked gruffly. He was opening his dresser drawers, pulling out clothes and stuffing them into a bag. Steve wondered when Bucky had become so nonchalant about wrinkled clothes.

“Yeah,” he said, studying them again.

Then he realized why his stomach was clenched in knots.

“Buck,” he said. “Where am I?”

Bucky’s eyes flickered over to Steve, over to the wall, then back to Steve.

“You aren’t here, often,” he said.

“You’re lying,” Steve said.

Bucky’s eyebrows drew together. “I’m not,” he said icily.

“I’m sorry,” Steve said, backtracking wildly. “I didn’t mean—just, _you’re alive_. I should _be_ here. Why am I not here, Buck? Why am I not in your life?”

“You are,” said Bucky, returning to packing. “Just not often.”

There was more to it. Steve _knew_ there was more to it. Bucky might all but be a stranger to him, one who didn’t want to let Steve in, one who didn’t want Steve to know him, but apparently Bucky hadn’t changed much when he was keeping something from Steve.

“There’s something you’re not telling me,” Steve said steadily. “Why are you hiding something from me?”

Bucky sighed and jerkily zipped up his bag. “Because I don’t want to tell you.”

“Buck.” Steve stepped closer. “I need a better reason than that.”

Bucky turned and glared at Steve, and Steve had never had this particular glare aimed at him before, one that said, _Back off right the fuck now._

“Steve,” said Bucky, and his expression softened, just a bit. “ _This is not your time._ These problems are not ones you can fix. Just … Just leave it alone, pal.”

“I just want to know what happened to us,” Steve croaked. “I can’t lose you, Buck, I just can’t.”

He must have said something wrong, because something shuttered close behind Bucky’s eyes, leaving him more closed off than ever.

“I know,” he said, and every syllable came out stilted and forced. “I know, pal.”

“Bucky—” Steve began, but didn’t know how to finish. Was he trying to ask something? Say something? Beg for something, _anything_ , from his oldest friend?

Steve didn’t know, so he let the potential sentence trail away awkwardly.

“Come on,” said Bucky gruffly, grabbing his bag and marching towards the door. “Wilson will have Rhodes by now.”

Steve trailed along after him, down the stairs, through the community room where people called warm greetings to Bucky and gave Steve curious, impersonal looks, then outside into the sunlight.

He didn’t know what to say to Bucky. Bucky was acting like they were strangers, like they had never shared more than three conversations together in their lives.

It was leaving Steve wrong-footed, and it was the worst feeling possible, mostly because he didn’t know what his future self had _done_ to make Bucky this way.

Was it just that his future self hadn’t managed to get over Bucky’s time as the Winter Soldier? Steve couldn’t imagine why he would care—it clearly hadn’t been Bucky’s fault or choice. Or…

His stomach sunk. Perhaps Bucky had found out, somehow, about Steve’s … less-than-friendly feelings towards him. Steve had imagined such a thing happening before. He’d imagined Bucky’s disgust, his rejection.

That would explain much, Steve reflected as they wended their way through Halfway Hills’ dirt pathways. Bucky must have found out about Steve’s queerness, been disgusted, and so now the two of them weren’t talking. Steve’s future self had left to give Bucky some space, Bucky had erased as much of Steve’s presence in his life as possible.

It made Steve sick to think about it, but it made _sense._

He would just have to keep his feelings for Bucky on lock-down, when he went back to his timeline to rescue him. Bucky would _never_ know, Steve would give him no reason to drive him away. They would remain best of friends and Steve would never give Bucky any reason to treat him like a _stranger._

With Steve feeling resolved and rather sad for his future self and his loss of Bucky Barnes’ presence in his life, they finally reached the road, where there was indeed a car waiting for them.

The driver’s side window rolled down to show Sam’s gap-toothed smile and Colonel Rhodes’ far more reserved greeting.

“Hey,” Sam said. “Anyone see a hundred-year-old asshole running around? I’m here to give him a lift.”

“Hilarious,” Bucky said as he opened the back door. “Move your goddamned seat up, Wilson.”

Smirking, Sam did, and Bucky climbed in.

Steve cast about for an appropriate thing to say, one that wouldn’t remind Bucky too much of their past and of Steve’s unfortunate feelings. “Good luck,” Steve settled on. “Drive safe.”

“Thanks, Steve,” said Sam, favoring him with one last smile before putting the car into gear and driving off.

Steve watched as Bucky rolled down his window and nodded to Steve as they passed. It wasn’t the goodbye that Steve wanted, but given why Bucky was avoiding Steve, it was entirely understandable.

Steve waved, his throat tight, and he wanted to cry, to scream, to punch something until his knuckles were bloody.

Of course it had been Steve who’d messed up in this future. Of course Steve had managed to alienate one of his favorite people in the world. Of _course._

Steve stuffed his hands in his pockets and shambled off. He needed something to do so that he could just stop thinking for a while about how he, Steve, and his stupid, stupid queerness had driven Bucky away from him.

He began to search for Addison and Piper. They’d probably have something for him.


	4. a speck of hope

### Bucky

Bucky watched as Sam returned from Rhodes’ apartment, having safely seen the Colonel inside.

He’d moved up to the front seat, mostly so that Sam wouldn’t keep periodically inching his seat back on Bucky, the asshole.

“Hey,” Sam said as he slid back into the driver’s seat. “Ready to see Pepper?”

“Sure thing,” said Bucky, slouching slightly in his seat as Sam started the car up.

New York had certainly changed, what with the Snap, the Reverse Snap, and all the confusion around those two events. There were a lot more homeless, for example, and a lot more derelict buildings slouched in disrepair. There were fewer cars out and about, too, as the economy was still recovering, and one of the things that certainly _hadn’t_ recovered was the energy industry. With improvements made by Stark and Banner over the five year gap, there was a _lot_ more renewable energy available, but the drastic shrinking and instant regrowth of the population hadn’t, of course, been accounted for.

And so, fewer cars, more jobless and homeless, and Bucky wished he could, somehow, help them all.

That was the crux of it, wasn’t it? The reason he’d started Halfway Hills. Bucky had done so much harm to the world, had killed so many people either by his own hands or by the ripple effect of his kills, that he could only try to make amends however he could.

They passed through Brooklyn, a place Bucky hadn’t been to since 2014, back when he’d been desperate to find out something— _anything_ —about his identity.

A flash—

_“Hey-a, Stevie,” Bucky said dryly, raising an eyebrow at that jerk-faced ninny Marty Sullivan, who was staring at Bucky, wide-eyed, clearly remembering what Bucky had done to him the last time Bucky had caught him punching Steve’s lights out. “These boys giving you a hard time?”_

_“I can handle it,” Steve rasped, wiping blood away from his mouth._

_Fuck, if Bucky did want to laugh fondly and roll his eyes in utter exasperation all at the same time. “Sure you do, pal. Tha’s why you’re spittin’ up blood. Now, boys, how’s ‘bout you let my friend here go?”_

_“Why you always gotta ruin our fun, Barnes?” one kid asked, ‘cause that’s what they all were—fucking_ kids. _Marty was three years Steve’s junior, only slightly larger than Steve himself, and Bucky fairly towered over all of them._

 _“Well, gee,” Bucky drawled. “It’s almost like, if you hurt people, there’s a chance_ you _might get hurt, too. Now scram!”_

 _Most of the fucking kids scrammed it, but Marty stuck his chin out, like he wanted Bucky to know that he was leaving, but he was leaving with_ dignity. _Like Bucky gave a fuck. He lunged towards Marty, who yipped and shot off, dignity be damned._

_Bucky turned back to see Steve wiping blood away from his mouth. His hair was all matted, his clothes dirty, his skin grimy and covered in blood and spit, but Bucky never wanted to look away._

Oh, _he thought._ I love him. _Then, his next thought,_ Shit.

_“I had ‘em,” Steve panted. “You didn’t gotta do that, Buck.”_

_“I know,” said Bucky, this time actually rolling his eyes, trying to banish his thoughts away and act normal. “But c’mon, Steve, we got ourselves some dates, and I don’t want us going out with too many bangs and scrapes, y’hear?”_

_Steve’s lips puckered into a frown, and Bucky wished—God, did he wish—that he could take Steve out, just the two of them._

_But that was just a pipe dream. A fantasy. And if Steve knew that that was what Bucky wanted, then, well…_

_Bucky was pretty sure he could kiss his friendship with Steve goodbye. Good Catholic like Steve? Bucky had heard some of the sermons…_

_“A date, really?” Steve didn’t whine, but Bucky could tell he kinda wanted to._

_Bucky slung his arm around Steve’s shoulders. “It won’t be so bad, Steve! And if she ends up being some kinda dumb and leaves you alone, I’ll save a dance for you, alright?”_

_“Don’t call a dame dumb, jerk,” Steve scolded._

_“Sure thing,” Bucky agreed, shooting Steve his best smile and was pleased to see Steve duck his head._

_Bucky squeezed Steve to his side just for a second before forcing himself to let go. Wouldn’t do to let Steve know just how badly Bucky had it for him._

_Wouldn’t do at all._

Sam’s voice broke into his musings. “Penny for your thoughts?”

“Surely my thoughts are worth more than that?” Bucky said.

Sam snorted. “Man, if there was a coin worth _less_ then a penny, then I’d give you that.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Sure, Sam. It was—” He sighed. “Just a memory.”

Sam glanced at him. “You’re still getting them?”

“Not a whole lot,” Bucky said. “But this is Brooklyn, changed as it might be.”

Sam was quiet for a moment. “Thought you’d gotten everything back ages ago.”

Bucky let out a bitter sounding laugh. “That’s what I told Steve, yes. Fuck, Wilson, I just wanted to not be broken anymore, and what the hell were the rest of you to know about that? Steve, he—”

“Knew you,” Sam finished. “He was the one who might know if you were broken or not.”

“Yeah.” Bucky’s throat felt tight. “I have no idea if I got everything back, Sam, and now I don’t know if I ever will. Only person who could confirm all that, well, his memory ain’t perfect anymore, is it?”

“Yeah.” Bucky could hear the frown in Sam’s voice.

Of the many things age was taking from Old Rogers, his memory was likely one of the more painful things. It wasn’t bad, but the near-perfect recall the serum had given him had deteriorated until Old Rogers was left with a below-average normal memory, and, well, it had been a long time since their youth. First time Old Rogers had tried to play “Can you remember?” with Bucky, Bucky had nearly bit his tongue off to keep his protestations to himself when he found that he and Steve remembered how they’d met completely differently.

“Memories aren’t perfect,” Bucky said before Sam could continue along the Old Rogers’ train of thought. “They change, each time we view them. Some people view their memories from the first person, others from the third, and details change _all the time_. So I have no idea how much I remember, if I’ll ever get everything back, rock-solid sure, or if some things are just lost, permanently.”

“Yeah,” said Sam as they headed for a bridge for Manhattan, leaving Brooklyn with all its ghosts behind. “But that’s what moving forwards is for, right? Making new memories?”

“Yeah,” Bucky agreed.

The rest of the drive passed by in a blur of a recovering, yet still limping city with its hollow-eyed inhabitants. When they finally pulled up to Stark Tower, Bucky found himself wishing that he was far away from the city of his birth, back in the community he’d helped build, out underneath the skies and stars, where people had far more hope. The blank-eyed, grey people around him put him uncomfortably in mind of him, back when he’d fled HYDRA.

He followed Sam into the Tower and to the lobby, where Sam presented himself and Bucky, and their IDs, to the woman manning the front desk.

“One moment,” she said, getting on the phone.

They waited for a minute or so, before the woman directed them to a set of elevators, which they took up to the fifteenth floor.

“Hello,” said another woman, sitting behind yet another desk. This woman was in her mid-twenties and clearly an assistant of some kind. “If you’ll have a seat, Ms. Potts is just finishing up a conference call.”

“Sure thing, thanks,” said Sam easily as he and Bucky sat in the cushy chairs.

Pepper Potts, now the sole owner of Stark Industries since her husband’s death, had kept the company running through sheer force of will despite the company’s lead innovator being gone. She had a daughter to care for, an entire globe looking to her for leadership during the worst energy crisis (and cris _es_ , _period_ ) in history, and pressure from the UN to continue in Stark’s footsteps when it came to the Superhero Laws.

It was a _lot_ of pressure, something Bucky did not envy Pepper at all, no matter how capable she was of handling it.

If only Bucky didn’t feel so awkward around her, he thought he would get along with her fairly well. But, well, there was the whole issue of the Accords, back in 2016, when Rogers had made it _quite_ clear what he’d thought of Stark’s friendship, which didn’t necessarily reflect on either Pepper or himself, but it felt rather like being the unfortunate Others in a strained marriage.

And there was also the _minor_ issue of Bucky being the one to kill her husband’s parents.

You know, details.

So, yes, Bucky would have loved nothing more than to be friends with the amazing woman that was Pepper Potts, but between her insanely busy schedule, his superhero-ing, and other details left to them by Stark and Rogers, they’d never quite gotten around to sorting those issues out, though he liked to think they had a pretty warm professional relationship.

“Ms. Potts will see you now,” the assistant said after a six minute wait.

“Great, thanks,” said Sam, giving her a winning smile before he and Bucky headed for Pepper’s office door. “Ready, Barnes?”

“Ready, Wilson,” Bucky confirmed as he and Sam headed in.

### Steve

Steve was in a bad mood the rest of the morning. He tried to help Scott and Luis fix up the roof on Mr. Rodrigez’s house, but he didn’t allow himself to talk, knowing that if he did, anything he’d say would be unkind and sulky, so he just let Scott and (mostly) Luis fill the time up with inane chatter.

After that, Steve headed into the Center, where he found Addison and Piper sitting at a table with someone he didn’t know. There was a battered suitcase on the floor next to their feet, and Steve could see that they were far too thin. Their eyes widened as they took Steve’s appearance in.

“Oh, hey Steve,” Piper greeted. “This is Mack. They’ve come from Tennassee, of all places.”

Mack’s wide eyes were still on Steve. “Is that…?”

“We have a bit of an Avengers situation on our hands right now, yes,” said Addison smoothly. “This hasn’t affected any of the residents here, but if the thought of that makes you uncomfortable…”

“No, no, it’s fine,” said Mack hastily, their eyes darting over to Steve. “I just thought that Captain America…”

“It’s neither here nor there,” said Addison. “Really, Mack, this is just temporary.”

“I was just headed upstairs,” Steve said stiffly.

Mack bit their lip. There was a hole in it, as if they had removed a piercing for this interview. “It’s fine?”

“You don’t have to leave if you don’t want to,” Addison told Steve before switching her attention back to Mack. “I think Gloria is almost here. Gloria’s great, Mack, she’ll settle you right in.”

Mack managed a nod, and so Steve slipped upstairs, leaving Addison and Piper to it.

None of the other Avengers were in the apartment, to Steve’s relief. He didn’t think he wanted to spend his time with SHIELD spies or princes or, Heaven forbid, _Stark_ , and so the quiet and the solitude was perfect.

He sunk onto the chair that had become his bed over the last few nights, scrubbing a hand down his face.

Steve was tired. His exhaustion was the bone-deep kind, the kind that had plagued him since Bucky’s supposed death in the Alps. The kind that no one, not even Peggy, though he’d loved her deeply, had been able to soothe.

Since realizing who Bucky was, Steve had felt some of the weariness chip away. Not very much—Bucky’s avoidance of Steve, his refusal to get closer to Steve, had forcibly reminded Steve of the distance that now lay between them—but enough that Steve had felt that, sometimes, he was more awake.

But after his realization of why Bucky was avoiding him, he felt the exhaustion creeping back, pinning him down, sinking its teeth into his spine, his neck, his brain, dragging him down.

He was just so _tired._

The door opened, and Steve glanced up to see Addison and Piper entering, caught in a low conversation.

“—Dunphy reported getting some strange readings from the cell block,” Piper was saying.

“We should—” Addison blinked at Steve and her expression morphed into one of concern. “Are you alright? You seem a little…”

Steve scowled at her, though it was really more a general scowl than one directed at her specifically. Still, Piper glared right back. “It’s nothing.”

“Ooh, missing Bucky already,” Piper said, that same hard glint in her eyes as there had been yesterday, when she’d spied that old man in the car.

“It’s _nothing,_ ” Steve repeated stiffly.

“Uh-huh,” said Piper flatly, disbelief clear in every syllable.

Steve glared. He missed Bucky. He missed Bucky’s voice, his presence, the fact that he was alive and within Steve’s reach, and he missed—

But Bucky wasn’t there, and Steve was pissed, and Steve had never, not in all the long years of his life, been good at controlling his temper.

Bucky wasn’t there, and these two strangers who seemed to be friends with Bucky and who didn’t seem to like him very much—and honestly, Steve had thought Bucky wouldn’t befriend people who were so close-minded, shows what _he_ knew—were right there in front of him, and so Steve found himself saying, “Maybe I just want some real answers.”

Piper arched an eyebrow, looking both pissed at him and patronizing all at the same time. “Come again?”

Steve narrowed his eyes and committed in the half-second he gave it thought. “You think I haven’t noticed that none of you mention us here in the future? You say my future self is in DC, but none of you have called him to talk this situation over with me. None of you talk about Thor’s future self, or Stark’s, Natasha’s—All we know is that some of us are dead, and some of us are far away, and none of you will _tell_ us anything—”

“What do you want us to say?” Piper demanded. “We’ve told you all the important bits—”

Steve stood up. He towered over the two women, a fact that registered only dimly somewhere in the back of his mind. “And, what, you never thought to tell me about _why_ Bucky and my future self aren’t talking?”

“Steve,” said Addison, her voice calm but her eyes sharp, only slightly wary. “I’m not sure what you think you know—”

“ _Think_ I know?” Steve said. “What, that Bucky doesn’t want to talk to me ‘cause he hates me? ‘Cause I—Yeah, that bit was obvious.”

“He doesn’t hate you,” Piper snapped.

“Coulda fooled me,” Steve snarled.

“Fine!” Piper shouted. “You wanna know where you are in this stupid future? In a _retirement home.”_

This answer blindsided Steve enough to cut his anger off at the knees, and he pulled himself short, blinking. “...What?”

“Yeah,” Piper said, a vindictive snarl in her voice. “That old man from a couple days ago? In the car? That was you, Rogers.”

“Pip,” Addison said, warning in her voice. At that moment, the door opened behind Piper and Addison, and Steve could see Natasha and Barton enter the room, the two of them stilling as they took the scene in.

But Piper ignored all of that, building up a full head of steam. “You _abandoned_ Bucky. You abandoned them all—Bucky, Sam, Wanda, the _world.”_

Steve’s throat was suddenly very, very dry. All he could do was say again, “What?”

Piper laughed, but it wasn’t a nice laugh, not by any stretch of the imagination. “You left _everything!_ Dr. Banner gave you an extra vial of particles when you went to return the Stones, and you went and had a life with some lady you had googly eyes over back in the forties. Agent Carter, was it? You went back and despite knowing she would find a loving, supportive husband, you married her and left all your family and all the people who missed half a decade of their life without you!

“And here’s the kicker—” Piper bared her teeth. “That old man you ended up becoming won’t even tell us if that life he stole was in this timeline or another. What’s worse, stealing a woman’s life away like some sort of trophy and creating an entirely new timeline where she ended up your _prize,_ or staying in this timeline and doing _nothing_ about HYDRA, _nothing_ about Bucky, _nothing_ about all the shitty things you _knew_ were going to happen?”

She sneered. “You’re old as balls, now. Guess the serum really reflects who you are as a person, huh? You became too much of an asshole, so now you _look_ like an actual asshole. You’re nearly two _hundred_ years old when you oughta be only a little over a hundred, and you really shouldn’t look as old as you do, ‘cause of the serum, but I guess the serum figured you weren’t worthy of its benefits anymore. Guess it gave up on you when you turned your back on everyone you claimed to care about.”

Steve felt like someone was squeezing his heart. His breaths were coming fast and shallow, like he was having an asthma attack again. She _couldn’t_ be telling the truth, she just _couldn’t_ be. “That—I wouldn’t—”

“Piper—”

“But you _did,_ ” Piper said, ruthlessly ploughing through his weak denial and ignoring Addison’s attempts to shut her up. “You promised you’d always be there for Bucky, you promised him ‘til the end of the line, and then you _left him._ Sam, your best friend in this century? The amazing guy who _became a fugitive for you_ , who helped you relearn how to be happy, who stood by you time and time again? Yeah, you left him also! And Wanda!” Piper held up her open hands and shook him like some sort of presenter. “You were the closest thing she had to a father figure she had left, and you left her, too! You left your twenty-first century family like last month’s stinky garbage. All your friends, everything you’d worked for and built for _twelve years, everything,_ to go be with a woman you knew for two years back in the ‘40s who you knew had had a really nice life. _Nicely_ done!”

It was a savage, cruel spiel, one designed to hit Steve with deadly precision. He could see that Piper was enjoying herself as she ripped into him for things he hadn’t even done yet, but had also happened a while ago for her. He could see her glee as he realized, with sinking, heavy knowledge, that she was telling the truth. The old man had looked like him, an older version of him. Bucky and Sam had been so strange around that visit, and the looks the citizens of Halfway Hills had shot him made too much sense, now…

Steve had thought it was bad, back when he thought Bucky hated him because he’d found out Steve loved him. This? This was _so much worse._

“You wanna know why we don’t like you?” Piper asked. “It’s ‘cause either you think you own another person, that a _person_ is a _trophy,_ or you’re a goddmaned Nazi sympathizer who let evil _flourish_. You turn into a sack of shit not even worth _knowing.”_

“That’s _enough,”_ Addison said sharply, and Piper subsided, still staring at Steve with that maliciously gleeful glare.

Addison let out a slow, measured breath and said, “Steve, I’m sorry about that.”

Piper opened her mouth, but Addison’s withering glare silenced her.

“Bucky didn’t want to tell you,” Addison continued. “You’ll only be here for a short amount of time, and he didn’t want to spend it with that knowledge hanging over you.”

 _Too late for that,_ a voice in Steve’s mind whispered.

“Still,” Addison said, her emphasis on the word accompanied by a sharp look at Piper. “Now you know what happened to you here in the future. If you’d like to discuss this further, Wanda or I would be happy to do so, though you are, of course, welcome to call Sam or Bucky and talk to them, too. Piper. Our room. _Now.”_

With that, Addison marched Piper to their bedroom door and slammed it closed behind them, leaving Steve frozen in the silence that remained, eyes wide.

“Well, that was dramatic,” said Natasha dryly, and Steve started, having forgotten that she and Barton were even there.

“Come on, Rogers,” Barton said, not unkindly. “Let’s go for a walk.”

“What?” Steve said, dazed.

“A walk,” Barton repeated.

“I don’t want company,” Steve said.

“Cut it, Steve,” said Natasha. “And go with this idiot.” She eyed the door Addison and Piper had vanished behind, her eyes narrowing slightly.

Barton didn’t even protest at her insult, and under Natasha’s unrelenting stare, Steve found himself and Barton heading downstairs and out the door, their feet angled for the tree line.

“Why’re you on babysitting duty?” Steve asked, trying (and failing, miserably) not to sound sulky.

“I have a bit more patience for this sort of thing,” said Barton, which didn’t make sense to Steve at all, but whatever.

Barton wasn’t Steve’s friend. None of the people around him were his friends. Except Bucky. Maybe. At least, he used to be.

What Piper said—Steve didn’t _want_ it to be true. He really didn’t. The very idea that he would go _back_ in time, abandon all his friends, that was…

Well, it didn’t sound like him. Not one bit. Not only did he have Bucky in this time (and the idea of that still blew his mind), but he had Sam and Wanda, and even Addison and Piper. The Avengers of this time seemed fun and clearly cared for one another, like a family. And Steve just, what, walked away from all of that?

It made everyone’s reactions towards him make a lot more sense, was the sticker. Sam’s surprise at Steve’s indignation on his behalf—Well, of course. Steve might not be as caught up on everything that had happened in the last seventy years as he might have liked, but he sure knew that there were a lot more freedoms for Americans in 2012 than there were in 1952. If Steve had willingly gone back to a time period with racial segregation, then of _course_ Sam would be surprised by his support.

And wasn’t that the kicker—The 2025 Avengers clearly had their issues with him, clearly wanted to demand answers from him but conscious that Steve, this Steve, wouldn’t have the answers. 

Addison could have stopped Piper at any point in time. Steve suspected that she, too, had wished to see Steve realize what a … _disappointment_ he’d become.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Barton asked as they slipped underneath the tree line, walking between pines and aspens.

Steve’s lips twisted. “Just trying to make sense of it all.”

“Nat and I didn’t mean to listen in,” Barton said, sounding vaguely apologetic. “Just kinda one of those things you can’t really look away from, you know?”

“I get it,” said Steve, not looking at him.

“Hey,” said Barton, stopping short and forcing Steve to look at him. “What the Steve of this time did, that wasn’t you.”

“But it could be,” Steve croaked. “How could I…”

“We all have our breaking points, Rogers,” Barton said. “From what I’ve gathered, your … past? Future? Who the hell cares. Whatever. This Cap’s past, it went from bad to worse. Maybe he just gave up.”

Steve scrubbed a hand down his face. “You know, my Ma always said I had no quit in me. Guess I proved her wrong.” And didn’t that just burn to think about.

“Hey,” said Barton quietly. “Rogers. You can _change_ this. Don’t like? Don’t do.”

“But the very idea that I—or a _version_ of me—would do this…”

“Don’t think about it,” said Barton sharply. “Seriously, Cap, those questions will get you. What could I have done differently, what would have happened if this one thing hadn’t changed—Trust me, that shit’ll eat you up inside.”

Barton would know, of course. Last Steve had heard, Barton hadn’t actually been cleared for active duty just yet, after the whole debacle with Loki.

“You’re right,” he said quietly.

“Damn straight,” said Barton, moving off again. Steve followed. “Look, Cap, I really don’t know you well, but from what I do know, you got a fire in you. You wanna fight the good fight, you wanna make a difference.”

Steve held his tongue, though he itched against that breakdown, because clearly, at some point, he very likely _would_ give up the good fight and stop wanting to make a difference.

“Maybe the Steve from this time didn’t realize that there was a difference between retiring from saving the world and giving up on it completely,” Barton continued. “Obviously, some shit went down, and neither Wilson nor Barnes were around to witness it. Who knows what this Cap went through during that time. You just gotta make sure that you don’t do the same thing, then, voila, different world. Different outcome. Different life.”

“You make it sound so easy,” said Steve.

Barton shrugged. “Don’t see why it can’t be.”

Steve mulled Barton’s words over. While this future, or present, still disturbed him, Steve could feel himself resolving to never head down this path, never estrange Bucky. No wonder Bucky treated them like strangers—They _were_ strangers. You don’t spend eighty years apart and _not_ be strangers. Old Steve—that was simpler to think of his other self as—wouldn’t be able to remember Bucky, and Bucky would have no idea who Old Steve had become.

God, this entire situation was so _messed up_. Steve just wanted to forget about everything he’d learned, go back to thinking Bucky hated Steve’s feelings towards him, because at least that was something Steve expected and understood. He wouldn’t have blamed Bucky in the slightest for his distaste for Steve’s queerness.

But the truth … The truth was so much worse. It really was. What sort of person had Old Steve _become?_

“Woah,” said Barton, drawing to a halt. “What the hell?”

Steve frowned and he looked around. It was a clearing of some sort, but one with deep scores in the earth and burn marks on the trees and rocks. Massive boulders had clearly been flung about, and some had even been twisted into strange shapes. Glassy surfaces gleamed in the sunlight, the heat from the burnings so intense that it glassed rock and wood.

“What the hell happened here?” Barton asked, looking around, wide-eyed.

“I have no idea,” Steve said. Both he and Barton had subconsciously dropped into ready stances, and Steve’s hands itched for a weapon.

But there was nothing to fight. There were no animals, but Steve could hear a couple insects here and there. There was no alien moving or breathing, nothing stepping on a convenient twig, no strange smells beyond burnt and melted rock and wood, nothing. Whatever had made the mess wasn’t there anymore.

“I don’t think it’s here anymore,” Steve said quietly.

“Gotcha,” said Barton, his eyes still scanning the clearing. “Let’s get outta here, Cap. This place is freaky.”

Steve agreed, so they carefully retreated until they got far enough away that the noises of the forest grew louder.

“Well,” said Barton. “How weird. And here I was thinking this was a nice vacay to the future, y’know?”

“No,” said Steve. “Not really.”

Barton snorted. “I’m guessing things haven’t been relaxing for you for a while, huh?”

Steve honestly couldn’t remember a time where he’d been well and truly relaxed. Maybe summer nights with Bucky out on the fire escape, cigarette smoke curling through the wind while Brooklyn bedded down for the night.

“You could say that,” he said.

Barton let out a breath and said, “Don’t worry, Cap. You’ll get your feet under you.”

“Sure, sometime,” said Steve. “And call me Steve.”

“Clint,” said Clint. They shook hands, Steve feeling a bit ridiculous, but there was something about Clint’s easy-going attitude that put him at ease.

Then their hands dropped and Clint said, “Let’s get back, tell Addison and crew about that clearing back there. Then it’s lunchtime, right? Yeah. It’s totally lunchtime.”

Lunchtime would have been a great idea, had it not been interrupted before Steve could step back inside the Center.

“Rogers.”

Steve stopped short, seeing Stark striding towards him.

Stark looked terrible. There were deep circles under his red-rimmed eyes and his hair and goatee weren’t groomed in the slightest. He wore wrinkled clothing and there was some sort of frenetic energy about him, something wild and hurt.

“Stark,” said Steve cautiously as Barton clapped him on the shoulder and headed inside the Center.

“Wilson and Barnes took off with Rhodey,” Stark said, his eyes darting about.

“I know,” said Steve.

“Yeah, ‘course you do,” Stark muttered.

Steve was at a loss. He had no idea what to do around Stark, how to handle him, what to say. It wasn’t like they were friends. They had been allies once, months ago.

So he settled for the general, “Are you okay?” and hoped that was good enough.

The wild-eyed look Stark pinned him with indicated that, no, it likely wasn’t.

“Oh, sure,” said Stark. “Learning that my parents were _murdered_ by one of my dad’s ol’ war buddies turned Commie assassin? Yeah, I’m doing _great,_ Cap.”

“It wasn’t his fault, Stark,” Steve said quietly.

Stark let out a bitter laugh. “Yeah, I’ve had that message crammed down my throat often enough last couple’a days. Don’t need it from _you,_ Boy Scout.”

Steve deliberately didn’t let himself get riled up. Hey, that was progress, huh?

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Why? Were you also there that night?” Stark asked. “Did _you_ kill my parents, too? Help your old pal out, doing the dirty deed?”

“Stark,” Steve said, and the name came out harsher than he’d intended, so he sucked in a breath, then let it out slowly. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

“Well, I can’t talk to Barnes right now,” said Stark bitterly. “So I guess you’ll have to do.” He fixed Steve with a dark, bleary stare and said, “Barnes. Be fucking honest with me, Rogers, ‘cause I can’t handle any of your naive optimism right now. Don’t bullshit me, don’t beat around the bush. You think he’s sorry for what he did?”

Steve thought back to when Bucky told them about his role in Howard and his wife’s deaths. That was back before he knew Bucky was _Bucky,_ back when he was still calling himself the Soldier. Had that really only been a couple of days ago?

Seemed like forever.

Either way, the lower part of his face had been covered, but those familiar steel-blue eyes had been visible. Steve remembered how tight they had been, how much sorrow, grief, and regret lingered as he watched as Stark had lunged for him. How quiet he’d been, how his fingers had trembled minutely. How he’d been ready to let Stark tear him apart.

“Yeah,” he said finally. “I really do.”

Stark nodded tightly. “Rhodey had the files. Apparently, Howard’s death was asked for by both HYDRA and Department X, but my mother’s death was ordered by my old mentor.” Something ugly crossed his face at that. Steve didn’t know the details about Stane, but he had read enough of the SHIELD files on the other Avengers to know the basics. “Here’s the deal, Cap. Your old war pal? Sure, brainwashing, torture, whatever. I’ll give him a free pass so long as I get to be pissed about it. I’ll try not to punch him, but no promises. But I digress.” He pinned Steve with an intense look. “But when we go back, to our time? Sure, I’ll help you get Barnes free, so long as you personally help me track down every sonnova bitch who had a hand in ordering my parent’s deaths and helping me wipe them out, one by one.”

Steve met his gaze as levelly as he could. “And you won’t go after Bucky?”

“Hell, I’ll pay for his therapy,” Stark snapped.

“Then yes,” said Steve. “I’ll help you.”

They shook on it, and Stark dropped his hand as quickly as possible.

“Great, awesome,” Stark spat out. “See you ‘round.”

“Stark,” Steve called after his retreating back. Stark froze, not looking back at Steve as Steve continued quietly. “I’m sorry. About … Well. Everything. Your parents. Bucky’s part in it.”

“Not something you had any say in,” Stark said with forced lightness. “Later, Cap.”

Stark forcibly sauntered away, not relaxed enough to make it look natural, but Steve didn’t comment on it, let him go, and instead headed inside the Center.

### Bucky

“Hello, you two,” Pepper greeted them as they stepped into her office. She stood from behind the massive CEO desk and crossed the room to them, wrapping Sam up in a hug first, then Bucky. “How was the trip?”

She smelled of oranges and honey. Bucky leaned away as soon as was polite, giving her a tight smile, which she returned, though hers was softer.

“Just fine,” said Sam as they headed over to the corner of the room where there was a couch, two armchairs, and a glass coffee table. “Rhodes is all settled in, said to say hi.”

Pepper smiled again, this time a bit sadly, as she settled back into one of the armchairs. “Thank you for helping him out. How—how is he?”

Bucky and Sam exchanged a look, and Sam said, “About as well as expected.”

“And you didn’t keep anything from him?” she asked, thought not with any bite. Instead, she just sounded tired. It was strange to think it, but Pepper Potts was nearing her mid-fifties, and as both a single mother and a CEO, she was constantly busy.

“No,” said Sam. “We told him everything.”

She pressed her lips together and nodded once. “Thank you.”

“Well, we’ll see how that works out in the long run when they get back,” Sam said dryly. “But I doubt any conflict between Stark and Rogers will come around ‘cause of that in whatever timeline they go back to.”

Pepper snorted and said, “Those two never got along, Sam. Steve keeping those secrets was just the straw that broke the camel’s back. Now, before we get down to business, can I get you two anything to eat? Drink?”

While Pepper ordered them lunch and coffee, she left them with a pile of papers to leaf through, red flags stuck to pages with proposed changes.

“How’s it looking?” Bucky asked as he scanned through passages about privacy rights.

“Well, it’s a lot more Constitutional,” Sam said. “None of that forced conscription or violations of privacy.”

“And it’s worded to your liking?” Bucky asked.

Sam tapped his lip, then sighed and said, “I think this is as good as it’s gonna get, Barnes, I really do.”

Bucky nodded and looked back down at the thick reams of paper. The Superhero Laws had been part of Sam’s negotiation with the United States’ government and the UN after the Snap, when it was clear that there were some forces the world couldn’t cope with, and dividing and alienating their best defenders was no longer feasible.

“We do this right,” Sam had told the world in a video not long after he’d become Captain America. “The Accords were the first attempt, but were thrown too hastily together with little regard for the laws and people’s own personal rights with far too many selfish agendas on the behalf of those backing them. We’ve seen what happens when people are seen as weapons, not as human beings, and we cannot go forward with that mindset any longer. What I propose to do with these Laws are ensure the safety of the world, of the people, and of our very basic human rights.”

There was more—Sam was very good at giving speeches—but that bit was Bucky’s favorite as Sam put his foot down on anyone’s hope of making another Winter Soldier. That had been one of Sam’s stipulations at joining—a full inquiry into General Ross who, as it turned out, had acquired a Chair and had fully intended to use it on Bucky, according to his notes and the testimonies of his underlings. Ross had wanted a supersoldier for decades—ever since he manipulated Banner’s project and helped create the Hulk. Slowly, things had come out, from the Abomination to his … well, less-than legal work with Stane and Hammer.

By the time the inquiry was done, Ross was behind bars without parole, his Raft—already a big no-no from the U.S.’s official viewpoint—dismantled, and any hope the Accords had at becoming legitimate was long gone.

And so Sam proposed the Superhero Laws. With T’Challa’s backing, as well as other nations eager to separate themselves from Ross, the Laws were carefully crafted to balance both the need to protect people from enhanced individuals wishing to do harm to the world and people’s own right to their privacy, bodily autonomy, and personal liberties.

It was nearly two years in the making, but finally the Laws were nearing finalization.

Pepper returned with some carry-out, and the three of them began eating.

“How do the changes look?” Pepper asked as she worked her way through a salad.

“A lot better,” Sam said, using a hand to flip through the pages. “Article F, sub-section ii is a lot more clear. I didn’t like all that dribble about how minors over the age of sixteen could be viewed as a potential threat.”

Bucky frowned. “Who suggested that?”

“Senator Forney,” Sam said. “But I pressed in on it. There’s gonna be a program that offers help training and controlling powers.”

“Which is where I come in,” Pepper said. “It won’t be a Stark Industries thing, but the organization will be partially funded through the Tony Stark Foundation.”

Bucky smiled. “Thank you.”

Pepper waved him off. “The least I could do, honestly. Enhanced children should not be viewed as potential _threats._ Why, non-enhanced children can get their hands on _assault rifles._ Anyone can be dangerous, if given the push, and instead of punishing people for things they can’t control, providing an environment for them to learn control and coping mechanisms … Well, that just makes more sense to me.”

“And to anyone with more than half a brain,” said Sam dryly. “Wonder when Forney had half of his removed.”

“Years ago,” said Bucky.

“Excellent,” said Pepper. “Let me walk you through what the lawyers were discussing…”

The next few hours passed with only a few minor interruptions; once from Sam’s phone, which he pulled out, glanced at, frowned, then tucked it away again, once from Pepper’s secretary, who entered to collect the remains of their lunch, and finally by Morgan and Happy. The young girl bounced into the room, already chattering away to her mother, grinning brightly at Sam and Bucky.

“Hey, Morgs,” Sam greeted her. “How’ve you been.”

“Good!” Morgan crowed. “We were learning about stick bugs today, and I think I wanna be an entamil—an enno—”

“An entomologist,” Pepper said.

“ _Yes,_ ” Morgan said. She turned to Bucky. “Do you like bugs?”

“Yes,” said Bucky. “I think I love caterpillars, what about you?”

Morgan reached out for Bucky, who took her, and so he got to listen to the six year old chatter about all the cool bugs she was learning about while Sam and Pepper said their goodbyes.

Pepper walked them to the door, Happy hovering a few steps behind them all, and when the doors slid open for him and Sam, Bucky reluctantly passed Morgan back over to Pepper.

“Come back soon,” Morgan demanded.

Bucky offered her a charming little smile. “I’ll do my best.”

“Should I visit, do you think?” Pepper asked before they stepped into the door. She looked exhausted, tired, and Bucky could barely imagine what she was going through. Maybe it was easier, having the person she loved dead instead of making it clear that their ideal life wasn’t one you were a part of. Maybe it was worse. What Bucky _did_ know was that both he and Pepper had lost someone dear to them, and he could see the toll it had on her.

Bucky and Sam exchanged a glance, and Bucky took the initiative, saying, “Only if you want to, Pepper. If it’s too hard for you, you don’t gotta be there.”

Pepper nodded, but before she could respond, Sam’s phone rang the emergency tone.

It was out of Sam’s pocket and against his ear in a heartbeat. “Wanda?”

“ _Sam!_ ” Bucky could hear the worry, the panic in Wanda’s voice, and immediately, both he and Sam tensed. “ _We’re under attack! Get back here!_ ”

Then the line went dead.

### Steve

“What the hell is going on?” Steve shouted as he ducked behind a garden bed. “Who’s attacking us?”

“That kid!” Natasha hissed next to Steve. “Greyson!”

Steve had just gone in to get some lunch. He honestly hadn’t expected the Center’s wall to be ripped away by a strange green light. He’d dived for cover behind the counter next to Natasha and Clint, trying to duck as green energies zapped through the air.

Steve had no idea what kind of power that kid had, but whatever it was, it was powerful, because when Thor flew towards them, clouds darkening above him, his hammer held out in front of him, the kid flicked his clawed fingers and suddenly Thor was far away again, just managing to catch himself before he fell out the air.

“What kind of power does this dude have?” Clint snarled, grabbing a knife. Steve wished he had his shield as Greyson shouted, “Avengers! Come out!”

“Yeah, bad idea,” Natasha muttered. Steve noticed her withdraw a small gun. He wondered where she’d found it.

Overhead, Addison rushed to the balcony, Piper a beat behind her. They took in the scene for a moment, eyes wide, before both burst into action.

“Keep them distracted,” he heard Piper snap to Addison, then Piper ran off, back into the apartment, and Steve thought he saw a crackle of blue light, but then he was dodging a whip of green energy as it crashed through the bar, separating himself and Natasha and Clint.

Steve rolled to his feet, grabbed the nearest thing—the smoothie maker—and lobbed it at the kid.

The kid saw it coming and flicked his fingers again—and the smoothie maker reversed its course through the air, like someone rewinding a tape, and Steve’s hand jumped to catch it against his will.

“He’s manipulating time!” he heard Addison shout as she sprinted down the stairs.

And then Wanda was in front of him, red light glowing from her eyes, her hands, and she shot a blast over to Greyson, who didn’t block in time, too busy trying to ward off Natasha’s relentless attacks, and Wanda’s red energy caught Greyson, froze his fingers.

“Go to Piper!” Wanda shouted, and Steve was hustled along by Addison, who shouted back to Wanda, “Hold him off!”

“I’m trying,” Wanda said through gritted teeth.

The quinjet flew over head, hovering over the grass a few yards away. The back opened up, and Piper shouted from within, “GET IN!”

Addison and Steve hurried over to the quinjet, joined by Natasha, Clint, and Stark. Thor was still making his way back through the air, and Steve had no idea where Dr. Banner went, but then they were in and the quinjet was taking off, gliding through the air.

“Get us outta here, Pip,” Addison said, making her way to the front of the ship.

“Roger that,” said Piper, fiddling with the controls. “I think we’ll just—”

She was interrupted by something hitting the side of the quinjet, and Piper swore.

“Greyson’s after us,” Addison said grimly, checking the monitors. “Wanda’s in pursuit, but he’s fast.”

“He’s got time on his side,” Piper said. “Literally. Are we out of range?”

“Only barely,” Addison said.

“What the _hell_ is going on?” Stark demanded.

“Greyson seems to have absorbed the energies of the Time Stone,” Addison said. “Like Wanda has with the Mind Stone.”

Stark gaped. “That’s a thing that can happen?”

Piper swerved the quinjet, trying to shake Greyson off their tail, and Steve reached out, grabbing Clint before the man fell head first into the wall. Steve braced himself against the seats, wrapping his hand around a bar. Once Clint was steady, by silent agreement, the two of them took their seats and strapped in. Across from them, Natasha and Stark did the same thing.

Then the quinjet shuddered, Piper swore, and they began losing altitude quickly.

“We’ve been hit!” Piper shouted. “Engine one!”

“Land!” Addison snapped. “You got enough power to get us away?”

“Yes,” Piper said as she started steering the quinjet down in a more controlled manner.

“If I had my suit,” Stark muttered.

“You don’t,” Natasha snapped as she strapped herself in. “We’re going to have to fight.” She met Steve’s eyes, and they reached a silent agreement—Stark was the most vulnerable of them all, and he would be protected.

“Brace yourselves!” Piper shouted just before they hit the ground.

The impact made Steve fly forward, saved only by his straps. The quinjet tipped up, then down, still ploughing across the earth.

After several long seconds, the quinjet finally came to a stop. Steve opened his eyes, breathing hard.

“Everyone alright?” he asked.

“Peachy,” said Clint.

“I’m going to _bruise,_ ” Stark moaned.

Everyone else chimed in, and Steve relaxed when he realized everyone was alright, more or less. There was a cut on Piper’s head that trickled blood down the side of her face and Stark seemed to have banged his elbow into a support strut, but otherwise, they were remarkably unhurt.

“We need to get out of here,” Addison said, already unbuckling herself. “We need space and a couple of seconds to make a plan.”

So Steve unstrapped himself, forced himself to his feet, and staggered out after her.

They were in some sort of clearing. There was a lake nearby, and a large house that some rich person probably thought was a quaint cabin. It looked uninhabited. 

Steve scanned the sky and thought he saw, way off in the distance, flashes of green and red.

“Wanda’s holding him off,” Piper said. “We gotta—Addy?”

Steve whipped around at her tone to see Addison standing stock still. Her eyes were wide and she was taking great, heaving breaths through her mouth and nose.

Piper leaned forward, intent. “Addy?”

It took a moment for Addison’s eyes to focus, and she said, “I’ve got it, Pip. The trail.”

Piper’s dark skin flushed darker in what Steve thought was shock, and she said. “ _Now? Here?_ But—we already searched here! There was nothing!”

“We searched near the cabin,” Addison corrected. “Not by the lake.”

Piper looked at Steve, like he had any idea what was going on and would help her. When he just returned her stare with one of confusion, Piper bit her lip and looked away.

“This is terrible timing,” she hissed at Addison.

“If you follow it, it’ll get us away from Greyson,” Addison said.

Piper blinked. “...Point.”

“Excuse me,” Stark said. “What the hell is going on?”

“I have teleporting powers,” Piper said. “And I’m going to use them. Once someone gives me a pathway.” She looked meaningfully at Addison.

“You’ve had teleporting powers this whole—” Stark began, but she stopped, because Addison’s eyes, normally a warm brown, now glowed a golden-orange color, the same color that misted over her dark skin, swirling around her wrists, her palms, her fingers.

“What the,” said Clint.

Neither Addison nor Piper paid any mind to them as Addison began to stride off towards the east, towards the lake, Piper right on her heels, following the trail of golden-orange dripping from Addison’s fingertips.

Steve looked over at his fellow Avengers and saw they were just as lost as he was. He glanced back up at the sky, saw the flashes of green and red were brighter, closer, and made the executive decision to follow Piper and Addison.

He strode after them, his longer legs propelling him quickly after them.

“Steve!” he heard Natasha hiss.

But she followed him, as did Clint and Stark, and so they stumbled their way after the other Avengers.

“Where are we going?” Stark demanded. “Excuse me! What the hell, guys!”

But Piper and Addison were picking up the pace now, jogging, then sprinting, following the orange light as it crossed the grass, towards the lake.

Steve put on a burst of speed, intent on catching up to them, and when he neared Piper, he demanded, “What’s going on?”

“Addy got the trail,” said Piper, sounding remarkably fine despite her fast pace. Steve could hear Addison panting, but Piper showed no such wear. “What we’ve been looking for.”

“I don’t—”

The orange light reared up like a snake several yards ahead, vanishing into the air.

“You’re up, Pip,” said Addison. “It’s far.”

“Far,” Piper repeated. “Far like…”

“You won’t get stuck back in there,” Addison said, suddenly fierce. “I won’t let it happen.”

Piper looked at her, and for a moment there was such a naked fear in her eyes that Steve was forcibly reminded that she couldn’t be older than twenty-three. Then the moment was gone and Piper stooped, picking the orange light up like a trail of thread.

Natasha, Clint, and Stark came up behind them.

“Can someone tell me what’s going on now?” Stark wheezed.

Addison looked at them, considering, then opened her palm. Four threads of orange light drifted out, stretching towards them.

“If you want to come with us,” she said. “Hold onto this. I don’t know where we’re going, but I know it’ll be far away.”

Steve met her eyes. “What is this light?”

“My powers.” Addison gave him a tight-lipped smile. “They won’t hurt you.”

“What, unless we piss you off?” Stark asked.

“Ads,” Piper urged.

Addison nodded and said, “Either you guys come with us, or you wait here for Greyson to catch up. Your choice.”

Steve looked at this woman, who Bucky trusted, who Sam trusted, who was adored by the community she helped build, and reached out and took the string. He saw the others follow his lead, trusting him. He hoped their trust in him was rewarded.

“Excellent,” said Addison, and another thread of orange light spilled from her, wrapping itself around Piper’s torso. “Floor’s yours, Pip.”

And Piper bolted forward.

Piper was running fast towards the point where Addison’s thread vanished, faster than any non-enhanced human should be able to run, and just when Steve was sure she was going to outrun whatever trail Addison had marked, sickeningly familiar blue light erupted from Piper’s body, crisscrossing her skin like sun-cracked mud, and with a shout, Piper shot a bolt of the blue forward.

A portal opened up where the trail ended. Ringed with blue and showing nothing but blackness, it was exactly like—

“Hold on!” Addison shouted as Piper leaped through the air, vanishing into the portal and dragged Addison, Stark, Clint, Natasha, and Steve after her.

### Bucky

Sam’s vehicle skidded to a stop on the side of the road, and even before it finally ground to a complete halt, Bucky was out of the door, sprinting over to the community.

He heard Sam’s door slam open and the patter of feet that indicated that Sam was following him.

The entire community was out and about, huddled in groups or calling out for those missing. Smoke rose up from the Center, and Bucky’s heart dropped.

“Gloria!” he heard Sam shout, and Bucky whipped his head around, scanning for the older woman. He found her standing not too far away, in front of her house with Banner and many of the citizens of Rockaway Rills. It seemed Gloria had set up a first aid center on her front porch, and she was calmly directing people and supplies about.

At Sam’s shout, the old woman looked up and waved them over.

Bucky and Sam headed for her, and by the time they reached her, Gloria had put Zee in charge so that she could lean over her railing and talk to them.

“Is everyone alright?” Sam asked once he stood before her.

“Everyone’s fine, dear,” said Gloria firmly. “Just shaken up and confused. So far, damage is mostly to the Center and the Compound, the houses missed most of the fallout.”

Bucky felt something worried inside of him relax at that, and saw some of the tension leave Sam, too.

“If you’re looking for Dunphy,” Gloria continued, absently fiddling with her wedding ring, a band of silver with small sapphires. “He’s off by the Center, evaluating the damage. If you’re looking for the other Avengers, I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

Bucky felt his stomach drop. “They’re gone?”

“Flew off,” Gloria said. “Talk to Dunphy.”

Sam and Bucky headed over to the Center, and Bucky felt his worry mounting.

“Any idea what kind of powers this kid had?” he muttered to Sam.

“Not a damn clue,” Sam replied. Then he raised his voice, calling out, “Bruce!”

The scientist stood next to the Center, patching up Jo, a seventeen-year-old kid. There was a pretty nasty gash on Jo’s shin.

At Sam’s call, Bruce looked up, clearly nettled, but not imminently in danger of going green.

“Hey, man,” said Sam. “What the hell happened?”

“Greyson,” said Banner grimly. “He got loose.”

“Yeah, we heard,” said Sam. “But what _happened?_ Where did everyone go?”

Bruce shrugged. “I was taking a walk in the forest, calming down. I didn’t really see what happened, just heard the fight and came rushing back, but by the time I got here, Thor was flying off and there was no sign of anyone else.”

Dunphy, Luis, and Scott rounded the Center’s corner, spotted them, and made their way over. Dunphy, though alive, had clearly been in a fight. His arm was in a sling and there were so many cuts and bruises across his face that Bucky wasn’t entirely sure if there was any visible unmarred flesh left.

“The kid is a Melded,” Dunphy said shortly.

“Oh,” said Bucky. “Fuck.”

Sam looked like he wanted to curse, but was also quite conscious of the fact that this was a Captain America problem, not a Sam Wilson problem, and so refrained. This was one of the many reasons why Sam was a better Captain America than Bucky could ever hope to be.

“What’s a Melded?” Bruce asked.

“Yeah, man, it was crazy,” Luis said at the same time. “That guy just kinda burst outta his cell, and I guess he manipulated time or whatever, ‘cause he was jumping people back to where they’d been a few seconds ago and slowing things down like some kinda slow-mo action shot, and it was _crazy!_ And—”

“They flew off that way,” Dunphy said, nodding his head to the north. “Can’t see ‘em now. Piper got the quinjet, got ‘em on board, got ‘em out.”

Bucky and Sam shared a look, then Sam said, “I’ll get my wings.”

“I’ll get the bike,” said Bucky.

Sam looked at Banner. “Where’s Thor?”

“He flew off after Wanda and Greyson,” Bruce said.

Sam nodded. “Bruce, I know you ain’t pa medical doctor, but I also know you know first aid. Can you keep helping people out here?”

“Yes,” said Banner, looking relieved.

“I’m calling Strange,” said Sam grimly. “If this kid is a Melded with time, then this is _very_ much his problem.”

Bucky nodded and left Sam to it, heading for the small shed next to the garden, the one that was very much _not_ used for storing gardening supplies.

Inside was a gift from Shuri, right before Bucky moved back to the States. A bike, sleek and black, kitted out with places to store weapons and enough horsepower to send most sports cars into fits of envy.

Best part? Shuri had made it knowing Bucky was going to be working with Sam.

It could _fly._

His grin was savage as he sat astride it, turning it on and revving it all the way out of the shed into the morning light.

Then he joined Sam in the air, and together, the two of them flew off after their friends and allies.

### Steve

Steve opened his eyes and—

There was _space,_ all around him. Stars and streaks of color—suns and planet, things in the darkness, moving closer, _eyes_ —He saw Natasha, her eyes wide, the most frightened he’d ever seen her—and there were bands of gold stretching out for him, ribbons of lights wrapped around his body… 

Steve would never be able to fully remember what it was he saw when hurtling along the portal’s pathway, but he knew what images he kept, he could never be able to forget.

In what could have been seconds, minutes, or even hours, Steve hit the ground and collapsed, groaning.

He felt like he’d been stretched out like taffy and scrunched together all at once. His head pounded and his thoughts were slow, muffled, like they’d been swaddled with gauze. He groaned again and tried to push himself up on rubbery arms.

“Pip?” he heard Addison whisper nearby.

Steve rolled his head to the side, cracking his eyes open to see Addison kneeling on the sandy ground, Piper’s head in her lap.

But beyond them—

If he hadn’t been in so much pain, Steve was sure his mouth would have dropped like some sort of cliché because he could only be on an _alien planet._ The stars were different, was the first thing he saw, and the sky was dark like nighttime, despite there being a far-distant sun.

Soft sandy dunes with shallow pools reflecting the forgien stars in their depths pocketed the ground as far as his eyes could see and he could spy no life, not plant nor animal nor insect, no matter how his eyes searched.

Steve struggling into a kneeling position, pausing every time he felt like hurling, lost in equal parts awe and hazy uncertainty.

He could see Stark was still on the ground, moaning about the pain in his head, but Natasha had already grimly staggered into a standing position, two guns pointed at Addison and the still-unconscious Piper. Clint, too, had a gun out and trained at the women, though he was in a kneeling position like Steve, faintly green.

Steve’s attention skittered back to Addison and Piper, noting the blood on Piper’s face. There were multiple tracks—from her nose, her ears, her mouth, and even her eyes. She was also breathing heavily, as if she’d just run a marathon in record time, though she remained deeply asleep.

Addison looked none the worse for wear, but her gaze was steady on Natasha even as she cupped Piper’s head in her lap, stroking the unconscious woman’s hair.

“Where are we?” Natasha demanded, her voice low and raspy and dead serious.

“I don’t know,” said Addison apologetically. 

Natasha narrowed her eyes. “Try again.”

“I really don’t,” said Addison. “This is just where the trail took us, I swear. I don’t…” She glanced around, shrugging helplessly. “I’ve never been off of Earth before. I-I said it was far, but I can’t really judge distances, not like Pip. I thought it would be in Antarctica or Australia … I didn’t know Pip could do this.”

“That portal looked an awful lot like the one that opened up over New York,” Stark said as he struggled to his hands and knees. He affixed them with a bleary, accusing stare. “Care to comment, Shadow Wolf?”

Addison’s hands spasmed around Piper’s face for a moment before the young woman regained control of herself.

“We both have powers,” Addison said.

“Yeah, we got that memo,” said Clint. Neither he nor Natasha had lowered their guns.

Addison looked around and saw no friendly faces. Steve wasn’t sure what his expression was doing, but he also wasn’t sure what to make of Addison and Piper, both of whom seem to have a lot more going on than they’d let on, which rankled Steve greatly.

“I don’t know what to say,” Addison said finally.

“How about with what the hell just happened,” Steve said, voice hard. He contemplated getting to his feet like Natasha, but the wave of nausea convinced him that would be a bad idea.

Addison opened her mouth, but that was when Piper unexpectedly woke up, coughing slightly on the blood in her mouth, sending flecks onto the sand and Addison’s knees.

“Ads?” Piper asked, her voice hoarse like she’d been screaming for hours.

“I’m here,” said Addison immediately, helping Piper tilt her face to the side so Piper could spit out a glob of blood. “I’m here, Pip, I’m here.”

“Where are we?” Piper asked, trying to look around while blinking the blood out of her eyes.

“Alien planet?” Addison said.

“No kidding?” Piper blinked some of the blood out of her eyes. “Never done _that_ before. Well. Not on purpose, anyways. No wonder I feel like I got hit with a truck or seven.”

“Take us back,” said Steve in a low voice. His mind flashed to Wanda, to the people of Halfway Hills, who were now left to deal with Greyson and his time powers without them.

“No can do,” Piper croaked. “I need time to recover, for one. No portals for, like, an hour. Maybe two. I don’t know, okay, I feel like shit.”

“So you don’t know where we are,” said Steve. “I hope you have a good reason for us being on another planet, Piper.”

He stared at her with his best Disappointed face, and Piper did her best to glower at him. This attempt was semi-successful, because while she was far too tired and weak to put too much effort into the glower, the blood everywhere was disturbing in and of itself.

“Piper,” said Addison. “I’m telling them.”

“What if we go back empty-handed?” Piper immediately fired back. “That would _crush him.”_

“Crush who now?” Stark asked.

“Bucky,” said Addison. “And I think that’s the least of our worries right now, Pip.”

Piper wilted and Addison ran her fingers through Piper’s hair. “I know you want to protect him, Pip. I do, too. But right now, we might actually get shot.”

Piper shot Natasha and Clint a _bitch-please_ kinda look before finally sighing and closing her eyes.

Taking that as permission, Addison looked at them and said, “We’re looking for Steve Rogers.”

Steve blinked.

 _“What?”_ said Stark.

“From our time,” Addison elaborated.

“I thought I was in a retirement home,” Steve said.

“What?” said Stark.

Addison bit her lip and addressed Steve. “You are, sort of. But. Not fully.”

“What does that even _mean?”_ Steve demanded.

“It means,” said Piper from Addison’s lap, “that we think there’s more to what happened to Steve Rogers than him going back in time and living a charmed life with Agent Carter.” She peered at them with her bloodshot eyes. A fresh trickle of blood ran down her cheek. “Addy and I wanted to get to the bottom of this, she found his intent imprint, and here we are.”

“I’m so lost,” said Stark. “ _Who’s_ in a retirement home?”

Steve didn’t particularly want to fill him in, but did so anyway, keeping his eyes fixed on Piper as he gave Stark the run-down of his future self’s apparent decision to abandon everyone for a past long gone and returning old and wrinkled.

“Wow,” said Stark, looking at him weirdly. “Uh. That’s a lot.”

Piper had an ugly look on her face. “If it turns out that wrinkled raisin asshole is the real Steve Rogers, I’m going to punch him in his stupid dentures.”

Addison held up her hands. “Piper and I have been looking into the case of Steve Rogers for a little under a year, ever since we actually met him.”

Natasha narrowed her eyes. “Why would meeting him make a difference?”

Addison looked down at Piper, who shrugged, winced, and snorted blood out of her nose.

“Gross,” said Addison before looking back at Natasha. “Have you ever met someone and realized that they aren’t _really_ a person?”

“No,” said Steve, Clint, and Stark. Natasha stared back at her.

“Right,” said Addison. “Um. Well, whatever happened to Old Rogers, he wasn’t … He didn’t feel like a real person. Not fully. More like … Like a copy of one. He was _nearly_ a real person, but not quite.”

“I thought it was just because he was a shitty person,” Piper said. “Trying to pass off as a real boy.”

Addison poked her cheek and said, “So I started looking into it. He passed every scan Pip and I could come up with. He read as human, he read as Steve Rogers, I had _nothing._ Except my powers were telling me that there was something … _weird_ … going on. But we haven’t had much luck until now.” She spread her hands. “The way my powers work, I needed to find a place where he was actively thinking of his plans so I could follow that intent.”

“We’d already snooped around the site where the time travel device had been,” Piper added.

“But,” Addison said. “It seems that he spent a great deal of time wandering around the lake, thinking about it. So. Here we are.”

“And you just happen to have Tesseract powers to get us here,” Steve said flatly, looking at Piper.

To his amazement, Piper actually looked down at that, her shoulders slumping.

“Look,” she said. “I got my powers in not very ideal circumstances, okay. I just. It doesn’t matter.”

“I think it matters a great deal,” Natasha said.

Piper looked cross again. “Look, you guys are all either dead, retired, or potentially still some incel Nazi-hugger, so I really don’t feel like explaining myself to you guys.”

“Piper,” Addison warned. “We’re trying _not_ to get shot.”

Piper shot her a dark look before struggling to her feet. “The trail still around?”

Addison helped her up and said, “Yes. But.” And she looked at them with concern.

“We’ll give you a chance,” said Steve. “But don’t …”

“Strand us,” Clint supplied.

“Zap us into atoms,” Stark suggested.

“Do anything suspicious,” Natasha added. She and Clint had lowered their guns by now, but both still held onto the weapons, clearly at the ready.

“Okay,” said Addison, her voice slightly higher than normal.

“Whatever,” said Piper. “We’re just here for answers.”

Addison shot them one last nervous look before letting her eyes glow orange-gold again, the light trickling off her fingers and snaking away across the dunes into the distance.

“Off we go,” said Piper before staggering along the trail, her face set with determination and a single-minded focus that, strangely, put Steve in mind of Bucky, back when Bucky was calling himself the Soldier.

They had been marching across the sandy planet for nearly half an hour seeing nothing but the still pools and endless dunes. It was eerily silent, on that planet, and the quiet was getting on Steve’s nerves. He never thought he’d say it, but he was rather glad to have Stark around, who kept up a fairly constant stream of chatter.

Steve had never been in such a quiet, still place before. He was a New York boy through and through and the lack of people and noise was making him feel jumpy, on edge.

The good thing, though, was that his head was feeling much clearer, and he was starting to really wish he had some sort of weapon on him. What he wouldn’t give to have his shield or a gun.

Piper continued forward like every move she made hurt, and Addison stuck close by her, periodically casting worried looks at both Piper and the Avengers to her right. However, Steve didn’t suggest they stop and take a break, and neither did anyone else, and so they kept going.

Once they passed a particularly large dune, following the orange-gold ribbon around its base, and that was when they found the first evidence that the planet hadn’t always been empty of life.

There were ruins before them. Built onto a hill, they stretched high above their heads. Sand coated the surfaces and most of the dark rock was well weathered and eroded. Whoever—or whatever—had built the structures were long gone, leaving only crumbled remains behind.

Piper and Addison hadn’t stopped, continuing along the glowing trail, and Steve hurried to catch up.

“Who lived here, do you think?” Clint wondered, staring at the ruins. “Whoever they were, they were about human size, you think?”

“Don’t know, don’t care,” said Natasha flatly.

“C’mon, Tasha, it’s an alien planet,” Clint said. “Little bit of wonder?”

But his attempted light-heartedness fell flat, and so everyone subsided into uneasy silence.

The trail took them to the ruins, wending its way to the very top. Steve and the others picked their way carefully up, as the pathways were strewn with loose gravel and sand that slid beneath their feet, threatening to send them plummeting over the edge.

At this point, Piper leaned heavily on Addison for support, and they were moving much more slowly.

Steve’s worry for Piper warred with his new mistrust of them, but as he watched Piper sag against Addison and shuffle her feet forward, he sighed and said, “Piper, can I help you out?”

Piper glanced over her shoulder and said, “What? Why?”

“Because I’d like to help,” said Steve, trying to sound as honest as possible.

Piper glared at him and said, “No, thanks.”

“Stubborn,” Addison mumbled.

Well, Steve had tried, and he ignored the looks Natasha, Clint, and Stark were giving him.

When they reached the top nearly ten minutes later, the first thing Piper did was sit down on a large rock that might have once been a pillar and breathe steadily while Addison rubbed her back. Steve looked around and saw that they were high up on top of what was either a very tall hill or a very short mountain. Two massive rocks rose up into the sky, bordering a pathway that jutted out into the air like some sort of pirate gangplank. Around them were many broken pillars and broken pieces of rock strewn about.

The glowing trail stretched out towards the jutted pathway before ending at the very edge.

“Just a little bit farther,” said Steve.

Addison glanced over at it. “I hope we aren’t expected to jump off.”

“You don’t even know what to do now?” Stark asked.

Addison frowned. “Given that I have no idea what Rogers was doing here, no. I don’t know what to do next. I was kind of hoping to figure it out once we were here.”

That sounded about as good as some of Steve’s own plans, but he frowned nonetheless, trying to piece together what they were supposed to do here.

“Well,” he finally said. “Let’s get to the end of the line and see what there is to see.”

Piper groaned, but gamely struggled to her feet, leaning heavily on Addison again as the six of them slowly made their way to the very edge of the pathway.

The view was stunning, Steve noted idly. He could see the dunes and the pools stretch out for miles underneath the orange-tinted night sky. Below them was a large circular space carved with designs and runes completely unfamiliar to Steve. The circle was edged with a deep hole around it, so deep and dark Steve couldn’t see the bottom.

“Great,” said Clint. “Now what?”

“Vell, vell, vell,” someone said unexpectedly from behind them.

Steve and the others whirled around to see a figure emerge from the shadows of a pillar. They were clothed in a tattered black cloak and, for some reason, spoke with a German accent. “Vhat have we here?”

There was something about that voice—

Piper and Addison stepped forward, and the figure seemed to focus on Addison.

“Ah,” it (he?) said, sounding … _pleased?_ “So you have come at last.”

Addison’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“Do you not feel it, child?” Steve could hear the sneer in the figure’s voice. “Can you not _feel_ zis place?”

Addison balled up her fists and said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“We’re looking for some answers,” Steve said.

“Captain,” said the figure, turning his attention to Steve. “It has not been long for me since I saw you last. Nor, I think, for you, either.”

Steve narrowed his eyes. “Excuse me?”

“Oh, vhere are my manners? Allow me.” And the figure reached up and lowered its hood, and Steve gritted his teeth as a familiar fury rose up within him.

“Red Skull,” he spat.

Schmidt let out a croaky sort of laugh. “Captain America! How many times will you come here, ready to try and kill me once and for all?”

“Clearly not enough times,” Steve growled.

“I thought he was dead!” Clint hissed at Steve.

“This is like Saturday morning cartoons come to life,” Stark said, sounding fascinated.

“Dude’s like, _actual red Voldemort,_ ” Barton said.

Schmidt looked sour at all the interruptions and said, “Quiet, _boy.”_

Clint flipped him off.

“We’re here for Steve Rogers,” Piper said. “The Steve Rogers that belongs in 2025, the now.”

Schmidt looked at Addison. “You know the price for taking the Stone.”

Addison blinked rapidly, then lifted her chin. “I’m not here to _take_ it. I’m here to talk with it.”

Schmidt sneered. “As Guardian, I will not allow—”

But he fell silent, and Steve became aware that an orange-gold glow lit them up from behind. He whirled around to see what looked like a miniature sun rising slowly through the air just beyond the end of the pathway, right where Addison’s trail ended. As he watched, the orb came to a stop midair, right where someone could reach out and pluck it up.

“Don’t touch it,” Addison said sharply even as she headed forward, towards the orb. “Just let me—” She reached out and carefully cupped her hands around the orb.

With a bright flash that temporarily blinded Steve, the orb encased her in a misty cloud of orange light.

“Addison!” Piper shouted, starting forward.

But suddenly Schmidt was between her and the cloud, and he looked _wrong,_ his eyes that orange-gold color, and when he spoke, it was not Schmidt’s voice. There was an echoing quality to it that told a very primal part of Steve’s brain that there was Something Else speaking through his hated enemy’s mouth.

“Do not interfere,” not-Schmidt said. “I will speak with my Custodian first, Custodian of my sister.”

“What have you done to her?” Steve demanded, ignoring the little voice in the back of his mind that told him to _keep his mouth shut._

Not like he’d ever listened to that voice in his life.

“We converse,” said not-Schmidt.

“What are you?” Stark asked. “‘Cause I think it’s clear the Nazi has left the building.”

“I am Soul,” said not-Schmidt.

“An Infinity Stone,” said Piper.

Not-Schmidt—the Soul Stone?—regarded her carefully and said, “I know what is in your heart and soul and in the heart and soul of my Custodian. I know what it is you seek, what you hope to accomplish.”

Piper lifted her chin. “You don’t care.”

“I do not,” said the Soul Stone. “For I hold all souls, and all souls come to me in time.” The Soul Stone stared into Piper’s eyes unrelentingly. “I devour all, in time.”

“I know,” said Piper, and her voice only trembled slightly under the gaze of a primordial creation.

“You carry my sister’s blessings,” the Soul Stone said softly. “And your soul is marked beyond your choice. Therefore, to achieve what you wish, I will grant you what you wish, provided that you do as I ask.”

The Soul Stone’s eyes glowed, and Piper’s glowed to reflect them, and Steve started forward, worried, except that then the glow died from Piper’s eyes, leaving her huddled and shaking before Schmidt’s body.

“I can’t do that,” Piper croaked. “I would if I could. But I don’t have the power.”

And the Soul Stone lifted Schmidt’s hand and pressed it against Piper’s head, and Piper _screamed,_ and Steve was aware he was shouting, but when he tried to run to Piper, to drag her away, the Soul Stone tossed him aside with a flick of Schmidt’s hand, and Natasha and Clint beside him.

“You have two minutes,” the Soul Stone said, its echoing voice ringing with power, and Piper scuttled back, frightened, before disappearing through another portal.

“What did you do to her?” Steve snarled, leaping to his feet.

The Soul Stone looked at Steve, and Steve found himself pinned, unable to move. He felt the Soul Stone scan his very being, his very self, and he shuddered beneath the gaze.

“I am old,” the Soul Stone said. “I have not melded with a mortal in aeons, young thing. But times change. Though all souls come to me, in time, if I am to survive with my Custodian, I must adapt. I can see what I must to do ensure my Custodian’s survival and my own continued existence, and so I ensure it so.”

“I don’t understand,” Steve croaked.

The Soul Stone’s eyes continued to bore into Steve’s. “When I trapped your soul, young thing, it was with much glee, for rare are the souls like yours. Unyielding, unrelenting. How proud I was, to have snared it. But without you, my future, too, dies, for the Final Winter approaches fast.” The Soul Stone looked away. “So low We have fallen, to rely on such tiny souls.”

Before Steve could ask more or even just sigh in relief at no longer being pinned down by that horrifying eldritch stare, a crackle of blue tore through the air. Piper leaped out, fresh blood on her face and clothes, and she looked wild, nearly unhinged as she dragged a body out of the portal behind her.

She dropped it once through the portal and ran for Schmidt, faster than any normal human should be able to run.

“Piper—” Steve began, but there was a knife in Piper’s hands, and she _stabbed it through Schmidt’s skull_ before kicking the Nazi off the edge of the pathway through the mist where he fell, silent, to the ground far below.

Piper immediately backed up, staring at the cloud, unblinking.

“What the _hell_ was that?” Stark demanded, and Steve noted that Natasha and Clint had their guns up again.

Piper didn’t spare them a glance, just said in a shaking voice, “Two favors, two souls. Though not loved, I’ve presented them as requested.”

She began to tip forward, would have plunged off the edge of the cliff had Steve not lunged forwards and grabbed her by the waist, dragging her back to safety.

The orange mist pulsed, and then Addison emerged from it. Her eyes glowed like Schmidt’s, and the mist seemed to cling to her pale skin. When she spoke, it was once again the Soul Stone that used her voice.

“Observed,” the Soul Stone said. “And accepted. Three souls, three souls. A bargain is made.”

Before Steve could even _begin_ to figure out what that meant, he wobbled on his feet. Staggering, he tried to steady himself and Piper against the nearest broken pillar, but his eyes were failing him, everything was going black—

When Steve next opened his eyes, he was floating in a pool of water, staring up at the alien planet’s star-strewn sky.

He immediately sat up and found that the pool was only a few inches deep. He frowned and looked around. To his great relief, Natasha, Clint, and Stark were floating nearby, just coming to themselves. There was no sign of Addison or Piper, and Steve’s head hurt as he thought back to what he’d just seen. Had he not been floating in a pool of eerily still water underneath an foreign sky, he might have thought it all a dream.

“Where are they?” Natasha asked hoarsely as she slowly climbed to her feet.

“I don’t know,” said Steve, getting to his own feet and bending down to help Stark up.

“I feel woozy,” said Stark, eyes wide. “Did I get sucked into another portal? That would really suck. Oh god.”

“We need to find them,” Steve said, ignoring Stark’s rambling. “They’re our only way back to Earth.”

“Great,” Clint groaned as he got to his feet. “Awesome. Love it.”

Everyone spread out, stepping cautiously out of the pool and looking around. There was a large honeycomb of pools between sand, and Steve scanned them, looking for any sign of Addison or Piper.

Just when he was about to turn back and meet up with the others, he spied a figure rising upwards from the depths of a large pool.

“Over here!” he called, and heard the others make their way towards him.

While he waited, he watched as Addison drifted closer to the surface, Piper not far behind her.

But they weren’t the only ones rising.

As Steve watched with growing uneasiness, three other figures followed. The first was clearly an older Natasha, her red hair dyed platinum blonde at the tips. Then came a much older Stark, more grey and worn than Steve had expected.

And then came—

Steve’s breath stuttered across his lips as he saw _himself_ rise from the depths. There was light scruff about his face and his hair was darker from time in the sun, but it was him.

Once all five had risen, they all, as one, sucked in a deep breath.

And as Steve watched, the other Steve opened his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a lot of thoughts on Steve's aging, and don't want to make a super long A/N about it, so if you're curious, [check this out](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28596375)
> 
> I hope you, dear reader, are okay and safe in these chaotic times <3
> 
> Chapter title from [here](https://cardiamachina.co.vu/post/140544768023/people-talk-about-us-in-mere-tragedy-as-if-all)


	5. we deserve a soft epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story was partly inspired by ["like heaven stood up in you" by napricot](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18691345), which is an absolutely wonderful story and was where I got the idea that Steve went to Vorimir to save Natasha.
> 
> Chapter title from [here.](https://cardiamachina.co.vu/post/187132533998/love-time-stops-doesnt-it-are-we-not)
> 
> Hope you enjoy the last chapter!

### Bucky

Bucky flew through the air on Sam’s right, his eyes scanning the horizon for any sign of the missing Avengers.

 _“We gotta spread out,”_ Sam said, his voice crackling in Bucky’s ear comm. _“Head to the west, I’ll go to the east. Check in frequently.”_

“Copy that,” said Bucky and steered his bike off.

The wind whipped through his hair and Bucky wished he’d paused a moment to pick up his flight goggles. In his hurry, he’d completely forgotten them. He scanned the air, the ground below, looking for any hint of a fight and any sight of their missing friends.

After five minutes of nothing, Bucky was about to turn back and reconvene with Sam when a green bolt of light zapped up at him from the trees below, only narrowly missing Bucky.

“Sam,” Bucky said into his comms as he dodged. “Sam, I’ve got—” He dodged a second bolt, cartwheeling his bike out of the way, but before he could regain his bearings, a third bolt of glowing green light enveloped him, freezing him up.

Bucky couldn’t move, couldn’t steer his bike away. Helpless and trapped, he was forced to watch as the green glow lowered him down into the treeline.

He hit the ground much more gently than he’d anticipated, though the force of it still shuddered its way through his bones. He couldn’t brace himself at all, but he only felt some pain in his neck from the impact.

The green glow didn’t fade at all, keeping Bucky trapped on the bike, unable to move. He wanted to reach for a weapon, say something, do something, but he was frozen, completely frozen, and it was sending his heart rate up.

Then Greyson stepped out from behind a tree, his eyes wild and darting everywhere.

Bucky stared at him, trying to figure out where the boy had come from and, with a sinking feeling, that this might actually be the end of him if Sam didn’t show up soon.

“I’ve been wanting to talk to you,” Greyson admitted.

Bucky said nothing, mostly because he couldn’t. He was, however, shouting a bombardment of expletives in his mind, as loud as possible on the off-chance Greyson could hear them.

It didn’t seem like Greyson could, but he did notice when Bucky remained quiet and said, “Oh, sorry, here.” And he waved his hand. Bucky felt his mouth unfreeze.

“What the hell is going on?” he growled.

“I need the Avengers,” said Greyson. “Where are you hiding them?”

“I don’t know, and I wouldn’t tell you if I did, kid,” said Bucky flatly.

Greyson scowled. “I can make your life suck, Soldier.”

Bucky glared. “I’m not giving you the Avengers.”

Greyson thrust his hand out, fingers crooked, and Bucky braced himself, but all that happened was the green light shimmering into a disc in front of him. As he blinked at it, the light smoothed out like a mirror, and Bucky found himself staring at his own green-tinted face.

“I know what’s happened to you,” said Greyson. “Bet you’ve come a long way, huh?”

“What are you—” Bucky began warily, but Greyson waved his hand and, to Bucky's horrified fascination, he began to grow _younger._ Under his gaze, his features smoothed over with baby fat, his hair slicked back, and his face looked far less care-worn. When all was said and done, he looked all of eighteen years old.

“I could turn you back into a baby, I think,” said Greyson. “Bet your enemies sure would like that, huh?”

The kid flicked his hand again, and Bucky aged up, but this time it was into the Winter Solider, all dead-eyed and long-haired, blank and hopeless, hapless.

“I’m preserving your mind,” said Greyson. “Because I want you to understand, but I could let that go. I could let you lose on the world again.”

“Don’t you dare,” Bucky managed. He felt wrecked, looking at the person he used to be, and all he wanted to do was claw his goddamned face off.

Greyson twisted his fingers through the air, and Bucky was back to looking like himself again, short-ish hair and weary eyes.

“What was the point of that?” Bucky snapped.

“That I could do a lot to you,” said Greyson. “That I could set you loose on a world and let you burn it if I so chose. If you don’t do what I want and give me the Avengers. Now, _where are you hiding them?”_

“I don’t know,” Bucky said.

Greyson sucked in a few deep breaths and said more calmly. “I need the Avengers back. It’s the only way AIM will help protect me. I _need_ them.”

“Last we heard, AIM wanted to overthrow all the world’s governments in a state of perfect anarchy,” said Bucky. “What do past Avengers have to do with that?”

Greyson twitched and fiddled with his fingers. “They’ll build me a capsule.”

Bucky blinked. “What? Why?”

“For the Crisis that’s coming,” Greyson whispered, and Bucky didn’t think he’d ever seen a kid look more scared, and he’d met several kids during his stint as the Winter Soldier.

“Max,” he said softly. “What’s this crisis you’re talking about?”

But Greyson shook his head and said, “Find them. I need—I need them. I won’t survive the Final Winter without them. AIM wants to show the world what they’re capable of by killing the Avengers, making a statement, showing that not even history is safe from them. But I _need_ that capsule. Please. _Please.”_

“I can’t hand them over to you, kid,” said Bucky. “They belong back in 2012. AIM can’t have them.”

Greyson’s face twisted with rage and he spat out, “Like they did this world so much good? When we needed them, they were scattered over some petty internal squabbles! The whole reason I’m—” He snapped his mouth closed, jaw working, before he said, “If you aren’t going to help me, then I’ll just do it myself.”

He vanished behind a puff of green, and Bucky found himself able to move once more.

“Sam?” he said, tapping at his comms. “Sam?!”

 _“Bucky!”_ Sam answered. _“I’ve been trying to call you for fifteen minutes!”_

“Run in with Greyson,” said Bucky flatly.

He heard Sam suck in a breath. _“You okay?”_

Bucky ran a hand through his hair. “Been … Been better. Where are you?”

 _“Pepper’s cabin,”_ said Sam, sounding grim. _“I’ve found the quinjet. The_ empty _quinjet.”_

“Shit,” said Bucky. “I’m on my way.”

### Steve

Despite the fact that Steve had seen no fewer than five people rise from fairly deep depths, when the other Steve sat up, the pool had apparently decided it was all of three inches deep. Because of course it did.

Steve really wanted to go back to Earth, where things made sense.

“Where am I?” the other Steve demanded, eyes and voice hard as he swiftly and near-silently rose into a ready position, hands curled into loose fists.

“Steve?” the other Natasha asked as she eyed everyone warily and climbed to her feet.

Something close to heartbreak creased the other Steve’s face, though he didn’t drop his stance. “ _Nat?_ You’re— _Tony?”_

“Hey, Cap,” said the other Stark. “Well. _This_ is unexpected. ‘Cause I died, right? I do remember that happened. Or did we lose again?”

Addison and Piper crawled out of the pool onto dry land. The pool had washed away most of the blood on Piper’s face, but a fresh trickle leaked out of her nose and the corner of her left eye.

“What the hell is going on?” the other Steve—Rogers, that was easier—demanded.

“What did you two _do?”_ Clint agreed, staring at the older versions of Steve, Natasha, and Stark with wonder.

“Nothing Bucky probably wouldn’t have done for us,” Piper muttered as she used her sleeve to dab at her nose.

“Bucky?” Rogers asked, narrowing his eyes. “Where is he?”

“He’s fine, Rogers,” said Natasha. “He was in New York last we heard of it.”

Addison stared up at Rogers and let out a weak laugh. “God, _Pip…_ ”

“Yeah, yeah, youb were righb, laugh ib ub,” said Piper sourly, glaring up at Rogers. “Youb were so much easier to _hate,_ god, whab the fuck dib youb do? Try to trabe yourb life for one of deirs?”

Steve’s eyes jumped to Rogers, who glared thunderously and said icily, “I don’t know who you are—”

“Steve,” the other Natasha—Romanov—interrupted. She was staring hard at him. “Don’t you tell me…”

Rogers stared at her for a long moment, then said, “A soul for a soul, Nat. I just thought … I thought that since I was returning the Stone, whole and unused by me, you could come back…”

Steve felt a funny jolt in his stomach as he said, slowly, “You didn’t leave for the past, you were trapped by the Soul Stone.”

Rogers looked at him for a moment and said, “Time travel?”

Steve nodded and Rogers frowned. “Did Bruce bring you guys? I don’t…”

“As far as we know, our travelling through time is unrelated to your disappearance,” said Natasha briskly. “What I would like to know is who _you_ two are.” She stared at Addison and Piper.

“And what you did to bring us back,” said Romanov.

“I’d like to know that, too,” said Rogers, and wow, was that what his Captain America voice sounded like? He sounded a bit like an asshole. “ _And_ how you know Bucky.”

Well, okay, that sounded more like him.

“And,” Steve felt compelled to add, “if this is the 2025 me—”

“2025?” the other Stark squawked.

“—Then who’s in that retirement home?” Steve finished.

 _“Retirement home?”_ Rogers asked, incredulous.

Addison raised her chin. “That Rogers is a leech.”

“A what?” Romanov asked.

Addison looked at Piper, who shrugged while still holding her sleeve to her nose. Then Addison looked back and said, “Look, I know you don’t trust us very much right now, but Steve—Bucky _does._ So just—give us a chance to explain and just, I don’t know, calm down a little?”

Steve glanced around and saw that he, and the others, were all in ready positions while Addison and Piper looked very small and very young on the ground, exhausted and blood-streaked.

Clearly, Rogers, Romanov, and the older Stark had no idea what was going on or who to trust, but Steve _had_ seen what Bucky was like around the two young women. He _knew_ that Bucky loved them, trusted them, cared for them. And he knew that, despite everything, Bucky was a _damn_ good judge of character.

So, slowly, he sat down, consciously loosening his shoulders as he did so.

Natasha, Clint, and Stark followed his lead, though neither Natasha nor Clint relaxed. Rogers, Romanov, and the older Stark slowly made their way out of the pool and sat a little ways away from them, still wary, but willing to listen.

Addison let out a breath. “Thank you.”

She looked at Piper, and Piper said thickly, “Whabever.”

Addison bit her lip and looked back at them. “So. Uh. Hi, for those of you who don’t know me. I’m Addison Fay. I’m, uh, I’m an Avenger, at the moment.”

“The Avengers are back together?” the other Stark muttered.

“Led by Sam Wilson,” said Addison, nodding. “Uh. There’s me, Piper here, Sam, Bucky, and Wanda. We’re the Avengers in the year 2025.”

“2025,” Rogers muttered. _“Fuck.”_

“You _swore,”_ Stark said and Rogers looked at him, startled.

“What year are you from?” Rogers asked, frowning.

“2012,” said Natasha.

“Yeah, about that,” said the older Stark before pointing at Steve and the other 2012 Avegners. “How are you all _here?”_

“We have no idea,” said Stark before grinning wanly. “But apparently magic.”

 _“Time Travel.”_ Stark threw up his hands. “That’s it. I’m never inventing a time machine again. I don’t need this in my _life.”_

“Here, here,” Romanov said tiredly.

“Ughb,” Piper groused, blowing a clot of blood out of her nose onto her sleeve.

“Pip,” Addison said, but Piper waved her off. With a sigh, Addison said, “Okay, back on track. I met Piper a little over two years ago, Bucky not long after that. I’d just woken up from a coma.”

“Yeah, about that,” said Stark. “You just, what, coincidentally fell into a coma just before the Snap and woke up not long after it?”

Addison closed her eyes. “I. Yes.”

“Why?” Steve asked.

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Addison twisted her fingers together. “Okay, let me give you the rundown of what happened since I know some of you didn’t make it to the end.” Her eyes flicked over to Romanov. “There was a big battle, Stark snapped the gauntlet, all of Thanos’ forces dusted, and Steve Rogers volunteered to go give the Stones back into their proper times.”

Addison ran a hand through her hair. “But instead of coming back, Sam and Bucky found an older version of Steve sitting on the bench. Apparently, he’d gone back and married Peggy—”

 _“What?”_ Rogers said, leaning forward.

Addison held up her hands. “I’ll get there. Anyway, he was old now and he gave the shield to Sam, so now Sam’s Captain America, and everyone just kinda had to deal with the fact that Steve Rogers was old. No one knew if he’d lived in this timeline or made a new one, and he wouldn’t tell anyone.”

Steve shook his head. “But you said he was a leech?”

Addison rubbed a hand over her eyes. “Okay, so we’re going to have to back up a bit, because this is where I need to explain this whole Soul Stone thing. So, the Stones are sentient. They aren’t _people,_ not like us, but they’re aware. They aren’t gods or anything, but they obviously have a lot of power, and if they choose to, they can imbue some of that power into someone.”

Steve stared at her and saw the others were, too. “Come again?”

“Wanda calls us Melded,” Addison admitted. “There are loads of reasons why a Stone would meld with a person. It might be because the Stone wants to experience the universe in a different way—they are rocks, after all, that doesn’t exactly make it easy to see and hear and touch things—or they might be trying to ensure their own continued survival.”

“But Thanos destroyed the Stones in that second Snap,” Rogers pointed out.

Addison nodded. “And he had just killed half the _universe._ The Soul Stone knew his intentions—how could it not?—so it found me, Melded with me, and anchored all of the souls it had just reaped to me.”

“That’s why you were in a coma,” Clint said.

Addison looked up at the sky, murmuring an assent. Piper clasped their hands together and squeezed gently. Addison cleared her throat and said, “The whole reason you guys _could_ reverse the Snap as easily as you did was because the Soul Realm was still around, all those souls still inside.”

“So you were merged with the Soul Stone,” Rogers said slowly.

“And Piper here with the Tesseract?” Steve finished.

“The _what?”_ Rogers said sharply.

“That was creepy as hell,” Stark said at the same time, staring between Steve and Rogers.

Piper glared and snorted, blowing a blood bubble out of her nose, which popped. “Yeah. That’s me, Melded with the Space Stone. That _didn’t_ happen in the Snap, though.”

“When did it happen?” Steve asked.

“2008,” said Piper. “I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. No idea why the Space Stone wanted _me,_ but whatever. I guess SHIELD was doing their stupid experiments on it and it sent out a blast of energy and I got caught up in it and the Space Stone decided it liked me or whatever.”

Romanov narrowed her eyes. “SHIELD never mentioned anything like that happening.”

Piper nodded agreeably. “Well, it’s not like SHIELD was pure SHIELD, was it?”

Rogers’ eyes sharpened. “HYDRA got you?”

Piper grinned. Her teeth were stained with blood. “How do you think I met Bucky? Anyway,” she said before they could pry. “Addy and me are Melded, Wanda is _close_ to being Melded, but not totally. Vision was more like a Melded, I think, though we never met him. So. Yeah. That’s what Melded are.”

“I only met Old Rogers earlier this year,” Addison said. “And there was something … wrong. With his soul.” She appeared to struggle for a moment before saying, “I don’t know how to accurately convey to you guys what his soul looked like, but, god, let’s go with a cliché. When you photocopy something, it’s nearly perfect, but just _slightly_ different, different enough that you can tell which one is the original version and which one isn’t.”

“Right,” said Clint.

“Old Rogers was the copy,” Addison said. “But he was _almost_ the original, close enough that I wasn’t entirely sure if what I was seeing was a copy or not. But either way, it made me think about whether he was _really_ Steve Rogers or not.”

“So what you’re telling me is that for the last two years, an older fake version of me was running around?” Rogers said flatly.

“No,” said Addison. “What I’m saying is that when you tried to return with the Soul Stone and get Agent Romanov back, the Soul Stone took you instead and withdrew some of your darker, more selfish thoughts and made them into a reality. Old Rogers was one of your dreams brought to life.”

She looked at Steve. “You think about it, right? Going back in time and marrying Peggy, having that life you missed?”

Steve shifted, uncomfortable. “I mean…”

“I wouldn’t blame you,” said Addison gently. “I don’t think any of us would. You’ve been in 2012 for, what, seven months? Of _course_ you want to go home to the time you know and the people you miss. There’s nothing wrong about that.”

“But I haven’t wanted that in years,” Rogers said. “Not since…”

“Not since you started adjusting to the twenty-first century,” Piper said. “Not since you started making friends and a family and learned Bucky was alive.”

Rogers looked pained. “Yeah.”

“So,” said Romanov. “You’re telling us that the Soul Stone took one of Steve’s more selfish desires from years ago, sent it to Earth, and, what, made it play house?”

“The Soul Stone feeds off of people’s soul energies,” said Addison. “The stronger the emotion, the bigger its feast. And Sam, Wanda, Bucky, _everyone_ who knew and cared about Rogers, they have had to deal with a version of him that seemingly abandoned them for some other life. That’s some strong soul agony right there.”

 _Oh, shit,_ Steve thought and could see the same sentiment on the other’s faces.

“I need to get back there,” Rogers said, standing up. “I need to…”

He started forward like he was going to walk through space to get back to Earth if that was what it took, only to be stopped by Romanov’s hand around his ankle.

“Steve,” she said, gentle yet intense. “We have no way of getting back.”

“Give me a _minute,”_ Piper said, glaring up at him. “I still got some residual juice from the Soul Stone, but I can’t hop back to Earth just like that, I’d tear us all apart. Be _patient.”_

“We could spend the night,” Addison suggested.

“What, you wanna bet Greyson just left Sam and Bucky and Wanda alone?” Piper asked before spitting a clump of blood onto the sand.

“Crap,” Addison muttered.

“I’ll be fine,” said Piper with all the bull-headed stubbornness Steve knew he’d used in the past, the kind that made Bucky despair at his continued survival. “Might need to stay in urgent care for a few nights but hey, that’s nothing new.”

“Pip,” said Addison.

“Addy,” Piper replied.

Addison’s shoulder slumped and she sighed heavily. “You could make this a little easier on me.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Piper joked weakly as she slowly clawed her way to her feet.

“Okay,” said Addison, helping her steady herself. Steve got to his feet, ready to swoop in and help if needed. “Okay, how soon?”

“Gimme a minute,” said Piper before closing her eyes.

Steve watched her warily, but Piper just swayed where she stood for a moment before taking an unsteady step forward.

“Urgent care for sure,” she told Addison, exhaustion layered through her words.

“Pip,” said Addison, sounding pained, but Piper shook her head and closed her eyes.

When Piper opened her eyes a moment later, they were that terrifyingly familiar blue color. The colored energy filled her pupils and irises, and the light crackled away from her eyes, zigzagging through her skin. It put Steve in mind of the soldiers he’d seen blasted into ribbons by HYDRA’s Tesseract-powered guns, except Piper didn’t blast apart. Though it looked like she would have at any moment, she instead raised her hand and thrust her palm out. Before them, the familiar portal opened up, blackness in the middle ringed with blue fire.

“In we go,” said Piper before vanishing into the portal.

Addison plunged in after her, and Steve barely looked at the others before he was following them.

The tunnel through the universe was shorter this time around, and Steve’s eyes were filled with stars being born, others dying, exploding, planets filled with life like nothing he’d ever seen before, galaxies spinning in utter silence, then—

Then they were back on Earth, back in the clearing with the cabin, trees and birds and the lake nearby, and Steve had never been happier to be attacked by people in yellow-edged clothes and a frankly horrifying number of weapons in his life.

That was, until he saw Bucky launch himself at a helicopter.

### Bucky

The quinjet was smoking, crashed, and utterly empty. Bucky stared into its depths and thought, _How many times am I going to lose everyone?_ before he forcibly shook that thought off and turned to Sam. “Any idea what happened?”

“Greyson hit their engines,” Wanda said. She and Thor were standing a little ways away, Wanda looking down at Thor, who was studying the ground with a frown. “They went down here.”

Bucky had already clocked where they were and was going his best to ignore the sight of the Stark’s cabin. Pepper hadn’t been here since Stark died and Bucky hadn’t wanted to return, ever.

“So where could they have gone?” he muttered to himself.

“They went this way, my friend,” said Thor, standing up and carefully stalking forward, his eyes fixed on the ground. “All of them made it out of the crash, if I am reading these tracks correctly. These marks here—” he pointed. “They stumbled about, confused. Then here—” He moved forward, the rest of them crowding up behind him, wide-eyed, like armed and superpowered ducklings. “Some of them were dragged forward, though by what I do not know. However, one set of tracks is running, the rest of them dragged behind, and then they vanish here.” He stopped, and Bucky looked down at the ground to see an utter absence of tracks, dragged or otherwise, and a patch of singed grass.

“Barnes,” said Sam urgently, looking at Bucky’s left arm.

Bucky followed his gaze and saw that underneath his long sleeved, gloved hand, faint blue light glowed.

He yanked the sleeve back, and everyone looked at the blue energy crackling along the veins in his arm.

“Shit,” he said. “They used their _powers.”_

“I do not understand,” Thor rumbled. “Who used their powers?”

“Piper, at least,” said Wanda.

“We need to find them,” said Sam. “They could be anywhere in the world right now.”

“Their phones?” Bucky asked as he put his sleeve back in place.

But Sam shook his head. “Not picking up, their GPS is showing up blank, I got nothing.”

“What sort of powers do they have, my friends?” Thor asked, looking between them all. “And how might I assist in finding them?”

“Piper can teleport,” said Sam before adding under his breath, aggrieved, “Among other things.” Then, louder, “I don’t know how to track them without their phones. They’re usually pretty good at checking in…”

Thor sniffs the air and frowns. “I know that smell,” he rumbled.

“I bet,” said Bucky.

“Barnes, you got enough of a charge to use it to backtrack them?” Sam asked, gesturing at his arm, and Bucky shook his head.

“Not even close,” he said just as both Wanda and Thor swiveled their heads to the east.

“There is a helicopter coming right for us,” said Wanda.

 _Probably not allies,_ Bucky thought.

“They are heavily armed,” Thor said, confirming Bucky’s suspicions.

“Greyson,” Bucky said grimly just as Sam said, “AIM.”

“Here we go,” Wanda grumbled to herself, red light crackling in her eyes as they all prepared to fight.

* 

“Just give them up!” Greyson shouted at them, but nobody answered him, too preoccupied with their fight. Sam and Thor flew through the air, Thor’s lightning crackling and striking the numerous armored cars that had rumbled up the driveway a few moments before. Sam was trading shots with several of the ground forces.

And what kind of recruitment package did AIM have, anyway? Because there were nearly a hundred guys on them right now. He and Wanda were holding their own on the ground, but there were a lot of people.

Still, four against nearly a hundred, and still they were holding their own? Bucky couldn’t be prouder of his team, his _family._

“Top up,” he panted and rested his left arm on Wanda’s, siphoning up some of her energy while she continued to crook her fingers and send AIM goons flying every which way, his eyes still trained on the AIM assholes around them, the gun in his right hand kept steady as he continued to fire.

Once the veins in his arm were glowing a bright, blinding red, Bucky brought it up and clenched his fist, sending a waved of red light out against the waved of armored fighters coming at them. Most of them were flung back, yelling with shock or pain (one of them crashed straight into an upturned car) but a couple of them crossed their arms into an X shape and—to Bucky’s shock— _blocked the energy wave._

“Wanda, we gotta problem,” he said, eyeing them warily even as he brought his gun up to fire at one of them. Their weird ‘X’ shield worked on Wanda’s powers, but Bucky’s bullet hit his neck and he went down.

“I know,” she panted.

Bucky is a damn good fighter. He wasn’t as good now as he used to be—he cared about things like civilian casualties and collateral damage, things HYDRA, and by extension, himself as the Winter Soldier, _didn’t_ care about—but he’s still far above the average combatant, which was why he managed to tackle Wanda to the ground and cover her with his body (and his head with his arm) just before the oncoming helicopter opened fire at the spot where they had just been standing.

Bucky used the tackle’s momentum to roll them behind the remains of the quinjet before leaping to his feet, taking a running jump at the quinjet, and using it to launch himself for the helicopter.

“BUCKY!” he thought he heard Steve’s voice shout, but Bucky was already arcing through the air, boosted by a quick expulsion of Wanda’s power from his arm.

He grabbed ahold of the landing rails, swung himself up and punched through the window with his left hand, successfully knocking out the passenger and getting himself a hand hold at the same time. A split second later, he had his gun in his right hand and shot the pilot, who slumped over the controls.

Bucky thought he saw Forson in the back of the helicopter, but he instead grabbed ahold of the window with his right hand and stuck his left arm up into the pinwheel of the blades.

His arm jerked at the force of the blades hitting it, but Bucky was a goddamned super soldier _with a vibranium arm_ and so he gritted his teeth and, one by one, the blades snapped and the helicopter began to spiral down to the ground. Bucky pushed himself away from the vehicle and flipped back down to the ground where he landed in a crouch, watching as a couple other people abandoned the helicopter just before it crashed into the ground in an explosive fireball.

The whole thing had taken maybe seven seconds, and Bucky took a moment to feel smug before he was leaping back into the fray.

“Holy _shit!”_ he thought he heard someone shout, but Bucky was shooting a goon and slashing his way back to Wanda, who was snatching parts of the wrecked quinjet to throw at the few goons that could block her powers with quite a bit of success. Blocking Wanda Maximoff’s powers? Sure, AIM, go ahead. Surviving getting hit by a ton of sharp metal? Good fucking luck.

“Bucky!” he heard Rogers shout again, and he spared a look to see that Rogers was fighting several yards away with Addison’s help. They both seemed to be protecting Piper, who swayed on her feet even though her hand was surprisingly steady as she shot goon after goon. She bled from her eyes, mouth, ears, and nose, and Bucky spared a microsecond to freak out about that before he registered that the Rogers fighting with Addison _had a beard._

How long were they gone? How long had they abandoned him again?

Bucky forcibly shoved that thought away and instead snapped a guy’s neck. That was when his eyes landed … on Rogers?

A Rogers who was clean-shaven. And who was fighting with Natasha and Barton, protecting … _two Starks? Holy hell he’s going to die for real this time he barely survived_ one.

And there was another Natasha, one with blonde tips, fighting at Wanda’s back while Thor and Sam took to the air once more.

What. The.

_HELL._

Bucky fought his way over to Addison, Piper, and the bearded Rogers before shouting at them, “WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN?”

“ALIEN PLANET!” Piper shouted back.

“BUCKY!” Bearded Rogers shouted again, and his eyes. Bucky stared back at him, wide-eyed, because he could have sworn that this Rogers—His eyes were the same as the Steve’s he’d said goodbye to on the platform all that time ago.

But then he saw a flash of green out of the corner of his eyes. Bucky whipped around to see Greyson holding a green ball of time energy between his hands. Forson stood before him, hands outstretched, and Bucky thought he heard the man say, “Think this through, Max. You _need_ us. How else will you survive?”

But Greyson’s face was twisted with shock and anger, and the ball of energy expanded between his palms even as Bucky watched, and Bucky knew, somehow, that he _couldn’t let Greyson release that energy._

“Bucky!” he heard Bearded Rogers shout behind him, but Bucky was already sprinting forward, eyes focused only on Greyson.

But he wasn’t going to get to Greyson in time, and Bucky’s gun was out of ammo. Forson was behind Greyson, looking singed and smug—Bucky reached for a knife, but then Greyson let out a scream and the green energy burst from between his palms.

Bucky instinctively brought up his arm, _pulling_ at the energy in the air, the mechanics of his arm ticking away with his thoughts, and the energy wobbled in the air for a moment, but the pull of his arm is too strong, and it all came flooding into his arm.

Bucky _screamed._ His arm, not veined in green so much was _completely_ green, glowed so brightly it burned Bucky’s retinas. He collapsed under the sheer _amount_ of energy now stored in his arm, too much, _it was all too much—_

_He was lost, in time, in space._

Two figures— _ma, pa—those are my—please don’t hate me, i’m sorry, i’m sorry,_ please—standing in a cramped room, just swaying on the spot, dancing and laughing, but they vanish in a howl of wind and snow and—

Fists up, bloody chin— _steve, little punk, why you always gotta run towards the people tryin’a hurt you?—c’mon, steve, you got_ me—in a back alley and c’mon, that’s not a proper boxing stance, steve, jeeze, and—

A huddled group— _hey Sarge, when you gonna share that booze, huh? not with you, pal, you stole my cigs. aww, c’mon, i’ll share my chocolate rations—i know he’s your best friend and all, Sarge, but that man is_ crazy— _buddy, you got no idea_ —and they would _hate_ him, hate him, what he’s done, what he’s become, and—

Still, silent, always at the ready— _to comply—report, mission report, screaming, they’re screaming, he’s screaming, that’s the_ Chair, _he’s getting his goddamned brains fried out, Asset, weapon, Soldier_ —and he wants to turn away, to vomit, because he _doesn’t want to see that again,_ and—

Sunlight on his face, warmth like he hasn’t felt in decades— _warmth, here on the savannah, and Steve’s on the video in front of him, all bearded and smiling, and his heart flutters at the sight of that smile, that lovely smile, that sunrise smile, and—_

“Barnes?” he thought he heard someone say.

White suit, steadfast expression— _he’s leaving you, of course he’s leaving you, who would stay with such a broken asset, such a failed soldier?_ And—

“Barnes,” that voice said again. “Transfer the power to me. Let it go, Barnes, now!”

Old smile, old lines, old life— _this was the life i wanted, but he didn’t say, this was the life i wanted and you weren’t in it, you were never in it, but still it rang throughout his words, a hidden echo, the truth,_ and—

“Bucky,” said— _Steve._ Something warm tentatively touched his flesh arm and, “Captain Rogers, I would advise against—”, “Steve, don’t—”, “It’s Bucky,” said _Steve,_ cutting them off. “C’mon, Bucky, it’s okay, I swear, just let it go!”

 _Let it go?_ Bucky wondered as he watched his life spin away from him, too old, far too old, he was so _tired_ —and, _let_ what _go?_

All of time spread before him. He could go to the future, to the past, and—

And wouldn’t that be something? To go to the past? He could—He could kill himself, before he was even drafted. When he fell from that goddamned train, or before he broke against HYDRA, or all those decades his hands killed and killed and _killed—_

Fuck that, he could go even _farther_ back. Gotta get Steve to adulthood, world needed Captain America, but on that boat to England, or in the trenches, or in Azzano…

Bucky’s whole life could be cut short. If Steve got his happily ever in the past, why couldn’t Bucky? Save one of his past selves from decades of pain, knowing that Steve would find his happiness somewhere, and Bucky would—He could—

_Rest._

Bucky was pulling on that power, aware of shouting, of people saying his name, but he ignored them, turned his sight back through _time,_ ready to find his own happy ending, his own just reward for slogging through this fucking miserable existence—

“Bucky.”

A hand, rough and calloused, cupped his cheek. Bucky _knew that hand,_ had studied every inch of it once under the Wakandan sun, had loved each detail.

“Bucky, let it go,” said Steve.

Aw, hell. He’s been doing what Steve wanted for a hundred years at this point, for better or for worse.

Maybe one day, when Steve passed away in his sleep, Bucky could learn to ignore his requests.

But not today.

And so Bucky—

Let—

_Go—_

* 

When he awoke, it was with his head in Steve’s lap. In front of him is Dr. Strange, who tucked his amulet away. Arrayed around Bucky are Addison and Piper, both looking worn and worried, Wanda with something angry and afraid tucked away behind her cool gaze, Sam, fretful, an older Natasha who gripped Steve’s shoulder with a white-knuckled grip, and an older Stark, who stared at him, wide-eyed.

“I’ll get Greyson to the Santorium,” Dr. Strange said to Sam. “I’ll tell you what I’ve learned from him later.”

“We’ve got Forson,” Sam rasped. “FBI’s coming in to clean up the rest of AIM.”

“He’ll need rest,” Dr. Strange continued. He looked down at Bucky with dark eyes, his expression clearly telling Bucky that the wizard thought Bucky was crazy. “You took in too much Infinity power,” he told Bucky flatly. “200 IGW. Any longer and it would have torn your body apart.”

 _Oh,_ Bucky thought dazedly. He heard Steve suck in a startled breath.

Steve—no, _Rogers_ —stroked his hair. It was the bearded one, the one who might have just stepped off the platform, though Bucky was sure there was some sort of joke in there somewhere. More time travel or whatever.

“Bucky,” Inexplicably-Bearded Rogers said thickly.

Bucky frowned up at him and wriggled away from Rogers. He climbed stiffly to his feet, wincing, and Suddenly-Bearded Rogers made a soft noise and an aborted motion, like he wanted to stop Bucky, or help him. He did neither, for which Bucky was grateful.

When he was more or less upright, he caught a glimpse of the other Rogers, the fresh faced one, which kind of solidified he hadn’t made two Rogerses up in the heat of battle. Perhaps he had a really bad concussion.

“Do I have _more_ brain damage?” he demanded of Sam.

“No!” said both Rogerses and Sam, Wanda, Piper, and Addison.

“Then what the hell is going on?” he croaked.

“Bucky,” said Bearded Rogers, getting to his feet slowly, like he was afraid he would spook Bucky. “It’s me.”

“I can see you’re you,” said Bucky crossly.

Bearded Rogers took a step towards him so Bucky promptly took a step back.

Then he whirled on Piper and Addison. “What did you two _do?”_

“Us?” Piper burst out, her fists trembling. “You fucking—”

“We found the _real_ Steve,” interrupted Addison.

Bucky stared between them and said, “Come again?”

Piper darted forward, faster than a normal human, and slammed full-force into his chest. Bucky staggered back before wrapping an arm around her trembling shoulders.

“I’m okay,” he murmured to her. “I’m okay.”

“You _asshole,”_ she hissed into his chest.

Bucky looked up and saw that there were far too many gazes on him, so he looked away again feeling prickly and desperately wanting to hide. Once, he’d been good at dealing with attention, but that had been a long time ago.

“What the fuck is going on,” he said.

### Steve

Steve watched as Piper hugged Bucky. He’d never seen her so upset, and from the slightly lost look in Bucky’s eyes, his friend also seemed flat-footed. Still, Bucky’s arms wrapped around Piper and, when she joined, Addison. He was aware of dark vans showing up, of SWAT members pouring out and cuffing the unconscious or injured AIM members. Forson seemed to have been turned into a baby by the initial blast from Greyson, and the baby screamed as one SWAT member picked it up, swaddled it in a blanket, and cradled it back towards one of the vans.

“I’d like to know what’s going on, too,” said Sam. “Like why we’re dealing with dopplegangers.”

“Well,” said Older Stark. “I’m pretty sure I just came back from the dead.”

“Same,” said Romanov wearily.

Sam looked at her, something like desperate hope in his eyes. “Nat?”

She grinned tiredly. “Wilson. Nice promotion.”

“ _Fuck,_ Nat,” said Sam and strode forward, wrapping her up in a hug. She hugged back just as tightly.

“Well,” said the Older Stark, looking around. “Now seems like an _excellent_ time to relocate to the cabin. Where’s Pepper? Morgan?”

“New York,” Sam said, pulling away from Romanov reluctantly. “They’re good, man. They’re safe.”

The Older Stark slumped for a moment, then straightened and said, “Well, since I’m technically dead, it’s not really my cabin anymore, but also who cares? Come on, guys. Me casa es su casa, yada yada yada.”

Steve took a step forward, but saw that Rogers was hesitating. Older Stark noticed that, too, and said, “Get your ass in there, Cap.”

“I’m not Cap anymore,” Rogers said idly, and Older Stark rolled his eyes.

“Take the inch, Rogers,” he said flatly before sighing dramatically at Bucky, who still hung back. “Relax, Voldemort. If I wanted to kill you, I’d’ve done so already.”

“Tony,” Rogers started, but Older Stark flapped a hand in his direction.

“Joking! Joking! Mostly. Anyway, this way everyone, let’s go, move along…”

Steve felt about as wary of Older Stark as Rogers, Bucky, and the 2025 Avengers looked, but they all trooped inside regardless, for lack of anywhere else to go.

Something painful lodged in Steve’s chest—and, by the looks of it, in Rogers’, too—when Bucky walked with Piper, Addison, and Wanda. Wanda held his flesh hand tightly, clearly reluctant to let go, and Bucky was murmuring something that sounded reassuring in a language he didn’t know. On his other side, Piper walked, a death grip around his metal arm. Addison held her other hand tightly. Both looked exhausted, and Steve really wanted Piper to get off her feet and, hopefully, into a hospital.

Inside the cabin, everyone just kinda sat on the nearest flat surface. Steve found himself sitting next to Natasha and Clint on a couch facing the large bank of windows. Underneath the windows, the 2025 Avengers gathered. Bucky, Piper, and Addison all sat on the floor while Sam and Wanda leaned against the windows, bracketing them. Sam dug into his suit’s pockets, looking for something.

Before them, everyone else arrayed on furniture or on the floor, save for Dr. Banner. Steve wondered where he’d got to.

“Well, hi everyone,” said Older Stark from an armchair. “This was unexpected, I gotta say. So, I’m back from the dead apparently, how’s the world?”

“There’s a housing crisis,” Wanda said. “We had a pandemic last year from so many out of date immune systems.”

“AIM’s a pain, and HYDRA was a thing earlier this year,” said Addison, her head drooping. “But climate change isn’t currently our biggest issue, what with all the green tech running things.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Sam said flatly when he finally withdrew a protein bar and passed it over to Piper, who took it gratefully. “Catch-up later, this craziness first.”

“Uh, wait,” said Stark from his stool before pointing at Piper and Addison. “Am I the only one who didn’t know those two could basically make their own Rainbow Bridge? Hands up, hands up, who also didn’t know?”

Everyone who wasn’t Sam, Wanda, Bucky, Piper, and Addison raised their hands.

“Rainbow Bridge?” Thor asked. “Am I to assume this means you have traveled between worlds?”

“Sure did, big guy,” said Stark.

Sam pinched the bridge of his nose. “What’d you do, guys?”

Piper remained silent, sitting sullen, her grip still tight around Bucky’s left arm, so Addison began to explain.

Steve, even though he’d lived it, still had a hard time believing everything she said. In the span of the last hour, he’d been attacked by a kid with the power of time, portaled to an _alien planet,_ saw the actual _Red Skull,_ discovered the truth about his _future self_ , and then fought a bunch of goons before retiring to a _mansion._

What a day.

By the time Addison wound down her recap, everyone in the room was looking rather dazed, even the ones who’d _lived through it._

Finally, Romanov cleared her throat and said, “So, you both are Avengers?”

“Have been for about a year and a half,” said Sam, scrubbing a hand down his face. “What the _fuck.”_

“Surprise,” said Addison, waving her hand about tiredly.

“And what did you trade?” Bucky asked unexpectedly. He wasn’t looking at either Addison or Piper, instead straight ahead with a strangely dead look.

Both Addison and Piper tensed minutely.

“That’s what I thought,” said Bucky, and his tone was creeping into one that Steve knew well. It was the same tone he used to berate Steve and his sisters whenever he was worried or whenever they did something upsetting or particularly stupid (read: Steve). It was Bucky’s Big Brother Knows You Messed Up Big Time voice, his How Are You So Fucking Stupid voice, and the sheer familiarity of it nearly sent Steve sprialing back decades.

“Trade?” Stark asked.

“The Soul Stone requires a sacrifice,” said Romanov, leaning back. Her expression was cool, unruffled. “Something you love.”

“We were given a discount,” Addison mumbled.

 _“What did you trade?”_ Bucky pressed.

Addison and Piper remained silent for a moment before Piper finally said, “I just had to give it two people. It wanted Red Shitstain dead and someone to replace him.”

“And who did you replace him with?” Wanda asked. “Piper…”

“Nobody anyone would miss!” Piper said.

“You traded the older Steve, didn’t you,” said Sam.

Piper glared up at him and hissed, “He was a fucking little cockroach _leech._ Who’s gonna miss _him?”_

“Piper,” Bucky hissed before muttering something angrily to her in a language Steve didn’t know.

She replied in kind before switching back to English. “At least the retirement home’ll have a free room now.”

 _“Piper,”_ said Bucky, Sam, and Wanda, and Piper glared down at her knees mulishly.

“Okay, we are gonna have to _talk_ about this,” said Sam. “Because that’s _not okay.”_

Piper shrugged. “It’s not like he was a _real_ person.”

Which brought up new questions from the 2025 Avengers, and by the time Addison had explained Old Steve in greater detail, Piper had passed out against Bucky’s shoulder.

“Let’s get back to the Center,” Sam finally said. “Pepper is sending a quinjet.”

“Pepper?” Older Stark perked up.

“Yeah, man.” Sam sent him a tired smile. “And she and Morgan will be on board.”

Then everyone was moving, talking, and Steve tried to make it to Bucky and saw Rogers doing the same, but in the chaos, Bucky slipped away.

### Steve

Bucky sat sandwiched between Piper on one side and Wanda on the other. Addison sat resolutely on Piper’s other side. Sam, still doing his best to live up to the title of Captain America, sat up closer to the front while the younger Natasha and Barton piloted them back. He guessed it was partly because he’d given them all a scare, and also partly because now there were _two Rogerses._ Which was making his head (and his heart) hurt.

An IV was hooked up to Piper, and she was completely passed out against his shoulder, breathing steadily. Addison had dug out some wet wipes and cleaned off her face to the best of her ability, leaving a small pile of blood-stained wipes on the chair next to her.

“So, basically AIM wanted to make an example out of us, huh?” Stark—the younger Stark—was nattering. “Bring us to the future, show the world they have big scary tech and can change the past how they saw fit, make everyone bow down to them, anarchy achieved, yada yada yada—”

Bucky scrubbed a hand down his face and tuned Stark out. Seriously, an alien planet? Also, _fucking Rogers._ Getting himself kidnapped by a _sentient rock or whatever._

How and why was this his life?

When he was younger—who was he kidding, even now—Bucky loved science fiction. His younger self would probably love all the aliens and weird powers and stuff, but honestly, living _through_ it, Bucky just wanted a nap and to forget the whole thing.

Because right now? He didn’t give a shit about weird powers or alien planets. His mind was instead reeling over _Steve._

Bucky could feel the intense stare Rogers—both of them—were aiming at him. It was a familiar stare, tinged with desperation and an intensity Bucky had never seen another person display. It was the stare Rogers had leveled at him in Bucharest, before the fight against Thanos in 2018. One that told Bucky how concerned Rogers was for him, one that begged Bucky to _look,_ really _look_ at him.

And Bucky didn’t want to. He didn’t know how to feel about … well, _anything._ He didn’t know what to say, what to feel. Because it was one thing to know that Rogers wanted a life without him, to have seen the age on his face, to have heard the stories of that perfect family he’d taken for himself in the past, and it was another thing to know that the last two years was a _lie._

What was Bucky supposed to do with all this new information? He’d spent _two years_ coming to terms with the fact that Rogers had gone off and lived a life. He’d had two years to grieve, mourn, and begin to move on. He’d had Sam, Wanda, Piper, and Addison. They had _all_ become his family, a family he’d built for himself without Rogers. Sure, Bucky would never be able to _forget_ Rogers, but, well, he was living. He was finding his happiness. He was moving on.

But of course, Rogers would ruin that, too.

 _Will I ever be able to just live my own goddamn life?_ he thought wearily.

He didn’t know, and no one answered him, of course, and so Bucky was just left with uncomfortable thoughts churning around in his messed-up brain and the feeling of two Rogers’ gazes on him.

* 

Later, once Piper was ensconced on a hospital bed in the Compound hooked up to IVs and sensors and other medical equipment Bucky could only guess the uses for with Addison dozing at her side, he found Bearded Rogers sitting in the waiting chairs outside Piper’s room.

Bucky didn’t know where the younger Rogers had gone, nor anyone else, but it didn’t really matter. Rogers had already seen him, too, and so Bucky couldn’t just slip away.

“Bucky,” Rogers said quietly.

Bucky regarded him wearily, then gave an internal shrug and shuffled over to sit next to his old friend.

“Hi,” he said quietly.

They sat in silence for a bit. Bucky could hear Rogers’ breathing, and the soft snores from Addison in the other room. Farther away, he could hear people talking, moving about, but they were alone together in this silent hallway.

“Two years,” Rogers said at last, when it was clear Bucky wasn’t going to say anything. “Guess it’s better than taking another seventy-year nap, huh?”

“Or a random five year absence,” Bucky said, leaning back in his chair.

“Yeah, or that,” Rogers conceded quietly. He turned his head. “Bucky…”

Bucky closed his eyes. “What.”

“I’m sorry,” said Rogers quietly. “I was … I know we discussed a lot of things, before I left. About what made us happy. About what we wanted to do next.”

Bucky let out a slow, measured breath. “You said you were going to go live with Carter. _I thought you had._ Christ, for _two years_ I…” He broke off, clenching his teeth together so tight it hurt.

“I said once I wanted to go live with Peggy,” said Rogers quietly. “But, Buck. That was years ago, and I’m so sorry I didn’t make that clearer.”

“Thought you didn’t need to,” Bucky rasped. “Thought the old you was clear enough.”

He heard Rogers suck in a little breath. “Did he come back on the platform?”

“No,” Bucky murmured. “He was sitting on a bench with the shield.”

Rogers let out an angry laugh. “It couldn’t even get that right, huh?”

Bucky shrugged, then caved and asked what he’d wanted to ask Old Rogers but never had the courage to. Old Rogers had lived—or, at least _thought_ he lived—eighty years without Bucky. But this Rogers, it was only two.

“What happened?” he asked quietly.

Rogers blew out a breath. “I returned the Stones. The Power Stone first, then the Reality, then the Mind. After that, it was the Tesseract, and I—” Rogers hesitated. “I’m not going to lie and say Peggy wasn’t there, Buck. She was. But I, well.” He looked down at his hand, clenched on his thighs. “I left my compass there.”

“You did.” Bucky didn’t mean for his voice to come out flat, but he was kind of taken aback. Steve had had that compass since a month after Azzano. He’d carried it _everywhere_ with him.

Rogers nodded. “I didn’t … I just wanted to see her, Director of SHIELD, in her element. You know her husband was there? He dropped her lunch off for her.”

“Good guy?” Bucky asked, his throat closing.

Rogers nodded. “Real good, Buck. Don’t think I could compete.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, pal,” Bucky said automatically.

Rogers huffed a laugh and unclenched his fists. “I thought it was time for me to move on. I loved Peggy—still do, think I always will. She was one of the very few people who saw me. But I … I couldn’t take her life away, Buck. I just couldn’t. And I’m so—”

“Keep going,” Bucky interrupted hoarsely.

Rogers nodded. “After that, I dropped off the Time Stone, talked to the Sorcerer a bit. Then I … Well, then I went to Vorrimir. Saw the Red Skull. Tried to punch him.” His lips twitched. “Actually, I _succeeded_ in punching him, but he’s kinda sorta dead, I think, so it didn’t really make an impact. Then I tried to barter for Nat’s life. Last thing I remember was this orangey light. It was … everywhere. It covered me. Then everything went dark. Next thing I know, I’m waking up in a pool with younger versions of people I know and me and two women I don’t know.”

“Piper and Addison,” Bucky said.

“I got that,” Rogers said. “They’re your friends.”

Bucky jerked his head in a nod. “Yeah.”

“I’m sorry, Buck,” Rogers—goddamn it, _Steve_ —said, all quiet earnestness. “I’m sorry that I left you alone for so long. That I … That I didn’t come home, and instead you had that other me. I’m so sorry I hurt you. I didn’t mean to leave, Buck, I swear. I meant to return. I really did.”

“Goddamn it, Steve,” Bucky whispered, and he’s leaning forward, and they’re hugging each other, tight and hard, and Bucky can feel himself shaking, but he’s pretty sure Steve’s shaking, too. Bucky closed his eyes and tucked his head into the crook of Steve’s neck and whispers, “Not the end of the line, yet?”

Steve’s arms tightened around him. “No, Bucky. Not even close.”

* 

_~One Week Later~_

“You sure this’ll work, Doctor?” Banner asked.

“As positive as I can be,” said Dr. Strange. “And given that I helped save the universe a few times, I think that counts for something.”

The six Avengers from 2012 clustered on a large circular grated platform where glowing runes were worked into the metal. Dr. Strange and a man named Wong stood on opposite sides of the platform, ready to send the Avengers back to their timeline.

All of the people from 2025—namely, Bucky, Steve, Sam, Wanda, Piper, Addison, Natasha, Older Stark, Pepper, Morgan, and Dunphy (who’d insisted on being there and was watched the proceedings with narrowed eyes)—hung around the edges of the room. Dr. Banner of 2025 was there as well, and was monitoring the goings-on with some sort of equipment with Older Stark at his elbow.

Bucky’s eyes found Steve’s, the younger Steve, and he offered the other man a small smile.

After he and _his_ Steve had talked, Bucky had made sure to track the younger version down and chat with him. After all, while Bucky hadn’t necessarily been _cruel_ to him, he’d definitely taken a lot of his anger and pain out on the younger version of his best friend.

“I get it, Buck,” said the younger Steve earnestly once Bucky had finished.

“Doesn’t make it right,” Bucky said.

But Steve had shrugged and grinned self-deprecating. “Well, when we’re hurting, we make stupid choices.”

Bucky had stared at him. “ _Really?_ You? Stupid choices?”

Steve had flushed and grinned wider, more real. “Shuddup, jerk.”

“What’re you going to do, when you go back?” Bucky had then asked quietly.

Steve met his eyes and held them. A familiar fire burned in Steve’s eyes, a fire that would soon consume anyone who’d dared to hurt Bucky, and Bucky felt a familiar curl of warmth light in his chest as Steve said, “I’m going to find you and free you and burn HYDRA to the ground.”

“Steve,” said Bucky. “If you find him, he might run.”

Steve blinked and frowned. “What?”

Bucky shrugged. “Maybe he will, maybe he won’t. I did.”

“Why?”

“For me, at least, it was important that I _could_ run,” said Bucky slowly. “That I could be on my own. That I could make my own way without anyone else telling me what to do. It was … It was a freedom I hadn’t had in decades. So, if he runs? Let him. He’ll come back to you.”

“How can you be sure?” Steve asked, and he sounded uncertain, just slightly, enough to let Bucky know how much it pained Steve to hear this.

“Because you’re you,” said Bucky. “Because you’ll be there for us, no matter what. Because the only thing you want from me is _me._ Not what I can do, not what I could do for _you._ You just want me.”

Steve looked at him like he had no idea what Bucky was talking about. “Yes?”

Bucky’s lips quirked up. “Exactly. So let him run. I promise you, it won’t be the last you see of him.”

“I’ll try,” said Steve.

Bucky had nodded—he’d expected that. Then he took a deep breath and made his request. “When HYDRA is done, when the other me is done running, you should retire.”

Steve jerked back. “What?”

Bucky held up his hands. “For the big world-ending stuff, can’t expect you not to help. But other people will take care of the smaller stuff, so Steve—retire. Find some peace.”

Steve looked lost. “But—There’s still so much I could—”

“There are other ways to help,” Bucky interrupted. “Maybe not collecting scrap metal in your little red wagon, but _Steve._ You stay in, I stay in, and it’s going to make us miserable. Volunteer to help vets with the Sam in your world. Go plant trees somewhere. Help build homes. Learn medicine and go be a doctor to far-off villages. There’s so much you can do that isn’t fighting and killing. Things that help, not just harm, and trust me when I say, that sort of work? That’s the best kind.”

Steve stared down and said quietly, “Maybe make our own Halfway Hills.”

Bucky grinned, unable to contain the flood of fondness he felt towards the stupid, ridiculous, sweet man in front of him. “Yeah?”

Steve nodded. “Yeah. That … That would be nice, I think. A community of our own. A place for people to grow. A Center for lost people.”

“Hey.” Bucky reached out and rested his flesh hand against Steve’s cheek, tilting it upwards. “I know things are rocky as hell in this timeline, but you’ve got _time,_ over there. More time than we’ve had.” He smiled sadly. “Don’t waste it.”

Steve stared at him and Bucky stared right now back. For a moment, Bucky had sworn they were going to kiss.

But this wasn’t his Steve, and he wasn’t this Steve’s Bucky, and so they didn’t.

But. It gave Bucky hope.

Now when Bucky met the younger Steve’s eyes, he saw that same resolve, that same determination, that same fire that had fueled Steve his entire life. He wasn’t going to retire yet of course—as he’d pointed out, HYDRA was still around, and both Steve and Bucky had a _very vested interest_ in seeing it razed to the ground and salted—but soon. Maybe not that year, or the next, but soon.

That had been yesterday, and now today, standing off to one side while the past Avengers got ready to leave, he felt happy. Content.

At his side, _his_ Steve squeezed his hand gently before letting go. Bucky missed the warmth.

And that? That was his goal. He was going to retire, for good this time, and he was dragging Steve with and they were going to have a long, _long_ talk which would (hopefully) end with Bucky finally working up the courage to kiss the stupid punk.

He’d wanted to for years. He’d wanted to since he’d hit puberty and realized that Steve’s fire warmed him up more than it should. He’d wanted to as they got older, when he’d been drafted, before he’d shipped out, in the trenches, when he’d remembered who he was, in Wakanda—but always, he’d hesitated. Always, he’d waited.

No more. Steve had always been the one who’d dived in head first.

Maybe this time it was Bucky’s turn.

He saw the younger Steve slip a USB drive into a secure pocket. That USB contained all the information the 2025 Avengers had on Bucky, HYDRA, and other major events from their world, including everything they had pieced together about Thanos. Bucky knew there was also a journal with all that same information compiled by Wanda and Addison in case the electronic was fried by timeline-hopping energies or whatever.

“Okay, I think we’re ready,” said the older Banner.

“Awesome,” said Older Stark. “Good luck, pipsqueaks!”

“Bye,” Bucky said, and heard the others chime in.

“It was good to meet you all,” said Thor, nodding regally. “Thank you for your knowledge and wisdom.”

The Steve beside him nodded and echoed Stark, “Good luck.”

“And … Ready,” said Wong, and he and Dr. Strange crooked their hands and wiggled their fingers, looking ridiculous as they worked magic or whatever that was. At least orange fiery sparks were flying from their finger tips so the whole things looked kind of cool instead of stupid.

The grating underneath the 2012 Avengers lit up with green light which grew in intensity as Bucky watched.

Eventually, it was too bright for Bucky to keep looking, so he shut his eyes.

When the light finally died away, the Avengers from years long passed were gone.

Steve bumped their shoulders together and murmured, “Think they’ll be okay?”

Bucky snorted and bumped Steve back. “They’re too stubborn not to be. Now come on, I want a smoothie.”

* 

_~March 10th, 2026~_

Bucky couldn’t remember a time he’d been this happy in the twenty-first century. His time in Wakanda probably came the closest, but even that paled in comparison to the last few months with Steve— _his_ Steve, the real, proper Steve—at his side. It was like learning to breathe again, like seeing the sky for the first time after months of darkness. It soothed an ache inside of him, one that had been a constant presence with him for the last couple of years telling him, _You’re not worth it._

But he _was._ And he knew it, not just because Steve had returned, but because Steve had helped him open his eyes to see the _community_ he’d built for himself. Everyone, from Sam and Wanda to Scott and Luis to Gloria and Dunphy. They cared about him and he cared about them, and they had built their community _together._ They had built themselves a _family._

For so long, Bucky had only seen himself as the remains of the Winter Solider, HYDRA’s weapon, and he knew on some level he would always be so. He would always be that hollow-eyed killing machine, just as he would always be Sergeant Barnes, sniper extraordinaire and Bucky Barnes, dock worker, skirt-chaser, best friend to Steve Rogers.

They were his past, his past selves; he would never be rid of them, but now he was _more._ Now, he was just Bucky—someone old and new with a life and a future to look forward to.

He’d made this himself, without Steve, but showing Steve his community, introducing him to his family, knowing that Steve would _stay,_ would live here with him, that … that had made everything real to Bucky in a way he hadn’t been able to see for himself before.

“Hey,” said Steve sleepily, rolling over and giving Bucky a peck on the lips. “Happy birthday.”

Bucky grinned and said, “Is that any way to greet the birthday boy, Steven?”

 _“Steven.”_ Steve snorted. “Just for that, _yes,_ that’s all you get.”

“Aww, c’mon,” Bucky wheedled. “Don’t be like that.”

Steve smirked, and before Bucky knew it, Steve was on him, thoroughly making out regardless of morning breath.

Then Steve pulled away and framed his hands around Bucky’s face. “ _God,_ I missed you.”

“I missed you, too,” said Bucky quietly, reaching up and gently stroking his fingers down Steve’s face.

Steve stared down at him, all serious, and Bucky braced himself for the worst, but Steve just said, “Buck, I hate to tell you this, but your hair’s a mess.”

Bucky rolled his eyes and smacked Steve on the chest. “Asshole.”

“Guilty as charged,” said Steve, all smug-like, so Bucky flipped them over so he was on top.

“You’re a fucking punk,” Bucky muttered as he began to pepper Steve’s skin with nipping kisses.

“Always,” Steve groaned.

There came a tremendous pounding at the door then, startling them both, and he heard Piper, Addison, and Wanda all shout, “TIME TO GET UP!”

“Think we could play the age card and claim deafness?” Steve murmured.

“Nope,” said Bucky, patting his chest before pushing away from Steve.

Steve settled back, appreciating the view. “I’ve been mostly deaf before. I could fake it.”

“Uh-huh,” said Bucky as he tugged on a pair of pants. “But the sooner we go out there and get whatever they have planned over with, the longer we’ve got back here, alone.” He waggled his eyebrows.

“Or we could just stay in here all day,” Steve argued.

Bucky rolled his eyes. “You really hate cake that much?”

“Of course not.” Steve sounded offended. “But, well. I can think of something else I’d much rather do.”

“You’re a fuckin’ menace, Rogers,” said Bucky, throwing a pair of underware in Steve’s face. “Get dressed.”

Steve grumbled, but complied, and finally they were more or less presentable.

Then Steve stepped forward until they were chest to chest, foreheads pressing together. “You good, Buck?”

“Yeah,” said Bucky. “I’m only turning one-hundred and nine, or thirty-eight depending.”

Steve grinned. “Our gravestones are going to be a _mess.”_

Bucky grinned like a dork. “Yours, maybe. I’m gonna be ashes and scattered to the wind. Help flowers and trees grow.”

Steve softened. “Mix our ashes together, Barnes. I ain’t going anywhere without you.”

“Morbid, but sweet,” said Bucky.

“Like you,” said Steve. “I love you. Jerk.”

Bucky kissed him once, then kissed him twice, then kissed him once again. “I love you, too, punk.”

_~Fin~_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here’s the ending! But fear not, for I have a sequel (maybe multiple?!?) in the works! Though, the longer ones are really more like alternate sequels … Well, either way, if you want more of this world, keep an eye out, folks ;D
> 
> Also, massive shout out to mmouse15, who helped me so much when making this story <3


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